Child of the Moon
by badriddance
Summary: Hellsing needed a werewolf. So I wrote this two or three years ago. There are elements of WoD and Underworld, but it's mostly my own werewolf lore. Plus vampires, relics, and Elder Songs of Power. And Walter.
1. Chapter 1

The first stab went unnoticed in her blind fury. The second caught on her ribs and forced her to turn with a shriek. The third silenced her, slamming straight through her throat. Pain begin to seep in through the rage and she threw herself upright to dislodge the spears. Another sank into her belly and another into her side. They grated against her bones, lifting into her flesh and dragging her inch by snarling, clawing inch from the floor. The pain slowly began to burn into agony. More pain ripped through her and her wrath became tinged with panic.

She couldn't reach her tormentors. She had killed a dozen or more before they had used the spears. The longer the metal touched her the worse the burning was. No one had ever used silver on her before. Lord Bastion had seen to that. She thrashed, trying to rip free of the spears. Another drove into her chest. Her scream emerged as a choked spray of blood. Wet redness flowed down the weapon shafts, raining onto the hunters below. She felt her heart vibrate against the silver blade and that pain ripped even her shock from her mind. Another stab almost went unnoticed in that agony, and the ninth sent her reeling into blackness.

#1 CHILD OF THE MOON

Three hundred years later, a February night had soaked the approaching soldiers with cold rain before finally ending in a mist-shrouded night. The full moon glared down like a milky cataract, turning the haze silver. There was little left of the old castle, but a tower and a small part of the fortress still stood. Bodies were hung from the walls like pennants. Some of them had already become ghouls and were moving feebly on the nails they were pinned up with. Even without them, the ruins would have been an eerie sight. It was the last remaining stones of civilization in a patch of wilderness near the sea. The nearest towns were miles away, but still the majority of young men in both had been lured here by some siren force. They had returned home as ghouls.

The resulting outbreak of cannibal monsters was what had brought the forces of Hellsing to this backwater county. Alucard had gone in first, homing in on some vampire vibe. He had dashed off in a swirl of red and black and after only a moment, the sound of gunshots rang out. The rest of the troops went in more carefully, taking on small groups of roaming ghouls and picking off the pinned ones.

Feeling a little unnecessary, Seras wandered into a corridor. There were a few piles of sand in ragged clothing, so a troop had been through this section already. Then, a darker patch of shadow caught her eye. It was a very small opening in the stone, a half-door leading into darkness. The dust and cobwebs were thick, so she knew no one had been there in recent years. A prickle of curiosity sent her down the narrow stairs, her shoulders brushing each side. The stairs met a much wider corridor and at the end, a wall of blackness that could only be a huge unlit room.

She stood in the dark, staring into the even deeper darkness for a long moment. Her red eyes refocused and she thought she could see shapes appear in the shadows. She remembered how Alucard had traced the other vampire to its hiding place. She tried to send her senses out to detect what was in the room. For a moment there was nothing, and then a thump. She jumped, startled. After another moment of more waiting, she gripped her cannon a little tighter and walked forward.

The room WAS huge. It went straight up to the ceiling, probably fifty feet high. From the floor rose nine spear-like shafts. They were set into the floor, forming a rough teepee shape. Seras looked up and saw a ragged bundle caught between the points. Three hundred years ago, it might have been a body. Not another impaler, she thought dismally. The poor soul. Still, her heightened hearing picked up the faintest shiver of movement. She tilted her head, listening. It was a slow, ragged rhythm. It would have been completely inaudible to human ears. She closed her eyes and let her vampire powers kick in, reaching out further. Somewhere on the rooftop, her Master's gun was blaring away. The tramping feet and muffled voices of the other Hellsing soldiers came from all corners of the ruin. And under it all came the persistent, butterfly-soft thump that had led her to this pit.

She focused on it, straining her supernatural hearing. There was an almost five second lull between every thump. As she became more and more aware of it she could also hear an even fainter, slower sound. It was the softest of breathy hisses. The more she listened, the more sure she was that the source was close by. She sucked in a breath through her nose, smelling old dust and cold metal. Fragments in the air caught in her nose and some predator's instinct formed a picture in her mind. There was blood here; so old and dry that it had become dust itself. Stronger than even that was the scent of pain.

"SHIT!" someone screamed and the sound cut through her senses like a chainsaw. She yelped and snapped out of the semi-trance. A blinding light hit her in the face, dazzling her eyes. She staggered back, bumping into one of the shafts in the floor. A rain of fine dust and little black specks shook down on her. A Hellsing soldier was in the doorway with a flashlight aimed above her head. His face was twisted into an expression of disgust.

Hadn't the idiot ever seen a corpse before? she wondered irately. He must be new... She glanced up at the sad remains in annoyance, wiping the dust from her face with the back of her arm. The only immediately recognizable part of it was the arm dangling free of the mess. There were tatters of fabric and most of the body was hidden by mass of tangled hair. There were scratches on the silver shafts. Whoever the poor creature had been, she thought wincing, it had fought hard even while impaled.

"What the hell IS that?" the soldier sputtered. Still peeved at having her senses so rattled, she glared at him.

"What does it LOOK like?" she snarled. "What did you expect to find in a vampire's lair?"

"Shit..." he said again, this time sounding fearful.

"Get used to it," she added, feeling a very vampiric rush of contempt.

"It's breathing..." he almost whimpered.

"Wha-?" she spun and looked up at the body again. In the trembling glow of the flashlight, a faint vapor of mist rose from where its head might be under the matted hair. After a few seconds, another one drifted up.

"Oh my God..." Seras gasped. "It can't still be alive! We're the first ones in this room for YEARS!"

"Kill it!" the recruit fumbled for his gun, dropping the flashlight. Seras snatched the weapon from him before he could fire.

"Don't be stupid!" she snarled. "Vampires don't breath."

"I don't care what it is! It's not human and that means it dies!" he voice faltered when she turned her red glare onto him full force. His jaw opened like the thought of apologizing had dawned on him, but then there was a splintering crash. A woman draped in black fell from the roof and hit the floor hard. Alucard dropped casually through the new hole in ceiling and pointed his usual hand cannon at her.

She scrambled to her feet, throwing off the velvet cape. She was obviously a vampire, labrat-pink eyes wide and frightened in a gray face. She had adopted modern fashion it seemed, dressed in knee boots and red fishnets. She wore a short black skirt and a tightly laced red corset. Her hair was artfully disheveled and her bright makeup was perfect. The only flaw was the fear in her expression.

"Guardian!" she wailed. "Save me!" Alucard waited, tilting his head expectantly. The other vampire leapt to the wall like a squirrel, and from there snatched the ragged body off the spears. More of the black dust peppered Seras. A speck landed on her lip and burned like a drop of acid. She wiped it away, leaving the taste of blood and the sensation of kissing a lit kerosene lamp. She spit, wiping at her mouth furiously to ease the stinging. The vampiress threw the body down on the floor and stood over it. Alucard casually shifted around so that his gun was aimed at her again.

'Wake up!" she screamed at the body, kicking it so that it rolled over into the small patch of moonlight under the broken ceiling. It came to rest almost at Seras' feet. She gasped, looking from the vampiress to the body. She wasn't going to step between her Master and his prey. She risked a glance at his widening grin and took another step back just to be safe. More Hellsing soldiers who had followed the battle down also hung back.

"Is that the best you can manage?" he said, amusement thick in his voice. "A long-dead servant? Was it a vampire once? A demon? You should be more careful with your toys." The vampiress' scream of denial ended with a gunshot and the sound of sand raining to the stone floor. Seras had seen this before and turned back to the body. It was a woman, gaunt and pale, a long mane of hair covering her better than the crumbling dress.

Moonlight streamed in through the shattered roof, making it easy to see her. Nine fist-sized holes punctured her body, black with layer upon layer of crusted blood. That soft sound that she had heard before was stronger now and she leaned over to squint at the corpse sprawled in the pool of silver light..

"Your heart's beating," she said, unbelieving. As she watched the wound in the woman's throat began to bleed red again. She backed away again with a gasp. Her Master was suddenly there to watch as well. The new blood washed the black scabs away and then the wound began to close. The woman gasped, her skeletal hands making clawing motions on the floor. Her eyes opened to slits and then flew wide. The moonlight filled them like bright water. They flashed silver white once and then clenched shut again. A low growl began to rumble from her thin chest.

There was a series of clicks as the soldiers readied their guns. The silver eyes snapped open and the woman was on her feet in a blur of crazed speed. Her battered body blurred as well, flowing and reshaping into something huge and fanged. A banshee scream of hate and hunger made the walls shudder. Guns slipped from frozen hands and the beast hit the platoon like a juggernaut. Seras stood stricken. The creature moved too fast for her to see exactly what it was. There were screams and splattering sounds and the smell of blood and terror sank into her vampire senses. Through that distraction, she heard her master start to laugh.

"I thought they were all dead!" he chortled. "Now I see. It's been so long!" The gun reappeared in his hand. The last of the platoon was being messily eaten. The shapechanger had pried the soldier open and was gulping down blood and flesh as fast as she could rip it from the bones. It was wolf-shaped, but built on a scale to rival the largest horses. It was dusty and silvery-colored, except for where it was splattered with blood. The wounds from the spears were just smudges of color in the fur.

"Oh my God," Seras whined again, covering her mouth with her hands. The dust on them burned her lips all over again, and this time the taste sent a wave of nauseous pain all through her. It saved her from the first pangs of hunger, but sickness rippled through her. She gagged. For the first time since her choice, she wanted to guzzle water. Alucard strode forward and the creature looked up from its feast. He fired once and a new arc of blood sprayed from its shoulder. The wound burst into flame. It turned on him with a snarl and charged.

"Yes!" he roared. "An elder beast from an age past! Even silver doesn't stop you! Unleash the forces of nature, moon child! Bring me your wrath!" As he spoke his body and coat blurred into a black and red aura. His red eyes went psychotic. Two columns of red eyes opened up in his chest. The beast slid to a stop at the sight, its own moon-colored eyes widening. It was afraid of him, Seras thought triumphantly. It would run and her Master would shoot it down.

Instead, the huge monster crouched before him, lowering its wolf-like head to the floor. His crazed smile faded a bit, especially when it shifted back to a tattered human form. The woman looked a hundred times better now, for all that she was still covered in blood, a decaying dress, and yards of unkempt hair. Her face was still gaunt but her injuries were almost gone. She remained kneeling, quicksilver eyes on the floor.

"Fight me!" Alucard snarled. "Get up."

"I've taken the oath, lord," she said, holding her bloody palms up to him. "I can not." Under the blood, were elaborate symbols. Seras inched forward to see them, and was reminded of the wards on her Master's gloves. She couldn't tell if they were tattoos or scars, but one had an eye as a central point and the other, the moon. Alucard's anger dissolved into what Seras thought might be curiosity.

He seized a handful of her silver-brown hair and yanked her head back until her whole body had to arch. She didn't resist. Her throat was bared completely, but Alucard hooked a finger in the ragged neckline of her dress and ripped it downwards. Seras 'eeped' in embarrassment, but all he uncovered was a small black scar over the woman's heart. It was shaped like either a star or a cross, and the vampire stared at it intently before releasing her.

"The Mark of Devotion," he said, (almost grudgingly, Seras thought). "You're young for such an honor...And you didn't save your last master..." The shifter sputtered in outrage, finally daring to look him in the eye.

"THAT?" she sneered, stabbing a blood-caked finger at the pile of leather and sand across the room. "THAT wasn't my Master! That gutter-tramp leech? I wouldn't have served that low-grade filth if she had come to beg for my help everyday for a hundred years with a bowl of milk in each hand!" Her odd accent was becoming more marked. A pointed grin was spreading across Alucard's face. Perhaps he enjoyed hearing his own opinions spouted back at him. "Hah! I was sworn to the service of a TRUE vampire, and I know one when I see it, and THAT was NOTHING."

Seras was baffled by all this and she was doing her best not to look down the corridor of dismembered Hellsing agents. She had grasped that her Master at least knew what this thing was and that it was some servant to vampire-kind. The strange woman glowered a bit longer, then remembered her manners and looked at the floor again. Alucard stood upright again. He glanced at the carnage down the hall and grinned again.

"My Master will want some explanation of what happened here tonight," he said. "Best to give her one in the flesh. Will you willingly leave this place, moon-child, when it has been your home for so long?" His voice was mocking and Seras fully expected the shapeshifter to respond angrily, but she got to her feet, eyes still downcast.

"As moon follows day," she said. "Her children obey. The oath was taken. Command me, lord."

The rest of the soldiers weren't happy about sharing a helicopter with the woman that had torn through and eaten almost a dozen of them. She was obviously uncomfortable in the machine and sat quietly.

"What's your name?" Seras asked, a little nervously. The creature was rubbing her hands clean on her dress. She eyed Seras carefully, then leaned close to sniff at her. Seras held her ground. Up close, she could tell that the shapeshifter's eyes seemed to have an extra lens on them, making light reflect off them as if there were no pupils. After a moment, the creature drew back, apparently satisfied.

"Anaid," she said. "Of the Dummanios." Seras wanted to ask more, but the wall of cold eyes watching and the stony silence made her nervous. She sat down to block the soldiers' view of the stranger and no one spoke the whole way home. Alucard was there as soon as the door opened and he herded the shapeshifter and Seras in to see Integra together.

The news of the massacre of her men hadn't gone over at all well, and when she learned that Alucard had brought the killer home, Integra hit the ceiling. Anaid appeared unruffled. She had been given one of the soldier's jackets to cover up the blood and mess and stood there with narrowed eyes. Once the shouting had died down, Seras gave her report timidly. Anaid stood to the side and looked Walter up and down. Finally, Integra turned her fury on the cause.

"What kind of creature are you then?" she hissed, blue eyes flaming. Anaid inclined her head.

"The vampires called us the children of the moon," she said. "Humans called us werewolves. We hunted both of them in the old days. Then, Bastion came. Wolves don't hold grudges. The strongest rules the others, and Bastion was powerful. He killed our leader, and insisted that we obey him. Instinct didn't argue.

"And it wasn't so bad. He taxed the people for silver so that they would have none to use against us. He let us have the wildlands to hunt in and we enforced his borders. By the time any army reached his lands, they were running scared, begging him for sanctuary from the beasts of the night. If he was defied by any of his people, we killed them and their mates and their livestock, leaving only the bloodied children to spread the tale of what happened. We were his army, his border guard, his secret police, and the daytime guardians of his court. I, myself, was chosen to be his fledgling's playmate when I was just a fumble-footed cub."

"You're some sort of feral monstrosity," Integra snarled. "A new kind of freak..."

"New?" Anaid chuckled in a short, barking way. "My people hunted out the mastodon. When the humans of this land lived in caves and wore flea-filled furs and cowered around their fires for fear of the night, it was us they were truly afraid of. "

"Those days are past!" Integra slammed her palm down on her desk. "Even if what you say is true, your people are gone. There had been no one in that castle or the wilds around it for 300 years. You may well be the last of your kind."

"My value has gone up then!" Anaid grinned, still being careful not to look directly at Integra. "What shall you do with me then, lady? The last of an ancient breed! The lord calls you master, so it is your choice. I've never served a human, but I understand pack hierarchy."

"What are you talking about?" Integra voice was now low and dangerous. Seras found herself biting her lip and wishing she had been allowed to leave for this.

"The strongest will always be Alpha," Anaid said, glancing at Alucard. "He rules the pack, but his chosen female rules him. I can only assume that would be you." There was an instant and chilling silence. Seras would have gladly thrown herself out the window to escape it all.

"The moon-child bears the Mark of Devotion," Alucard said suddenly. "It is a mark of extreme trust. Only the most faithful and deserving servants gained that honor. Only a high-grade vampire would be able to command the werewolves. Stronger than humans, smarter and fiercer than ghouls, some even a match for their masters. Powerful, but with a sense of loyalty." He grinned at Integra. "Once their loyalty was earned, there were no better guardians." There was another frosty stretch of quiet.

"You killed a whole squadron of my men," Integra said finally. Her eyes had never left Anaid. "Replacing all of them and performing all of their duties should keep you too busy to rampage."

"Wolves weren't meant to hunt alone," Anaid said. "Very well."


	2. Chapter 2

#2 SILVER LINING

If the Hellsing soldiers had been unnerved by Seras, they were openly terrified of Anaid. She wasn't helping matters either. She swaggered though the place like she owned it, staring down anyone who questioned her, and treating the humans like insects. Her confidence did seem well-founded. She was quick to learn anything asked of her, fast and strong, and radiating a predatory aura of superiority. Any soldier in her presence for very long soon became fidgety and frantic, breaking out into cold sweats, and in one case, fleeing the room entirely.

Anaid seemed to enjoy it. Seras was beginning to think she was doing it on purpose. She had to admit it was a bit satisfying to see some of the jerks who's insulted her so often quake in their boots, but wondered how long Anaid would get away with it. Finally, while she was trying to explain to the werewolf why it would be in her best interests to learn to use guns, a soldier named Daler stepped up. Seras had never liked Daler. He was a loudmouth and like most of his kind, very rude. She did her best to ignore him.

"I know you won't be able to use it when you're changing forms," she said, putting a standard issue handgun into the other woman's hand. Anaid held the thing like she expected it to move. "But there may be times when you need to appear human, and it may do you good to know how to use one."

"That's all we need," Daler muttered. "Giving guns to the animals now? It's bad enough that the freaks have them." He was looking at Seras when he said it, and she was drawing breath to respond when Anaid stepped in. She locked eyes with Daler and grinned. It was the kind of smirk that needed moonlight reflecting off it to make it complete, but even then, Seras could see Daler pale.

"The thing is," she said softly. "Animals don't care about guns." Daler's Adam's apple bobbed twice as he swallowed hard. "We're only interested in two things: who we can fuck and who is food. Which are you?" She 'walked' her fingers teasingly up his throat, and Seras could see that she had grown a set of wicked claws. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but just left it open. His nerve broke visibly and he hurried away. Anaid looked triumphantly at Seras. "Still think I need a gun?"

In the end, Walter was the only one who was able to teach her anything about firearms. Anaid seemed to have taken to him, which Seras thought was odd since the werewolf treated every other human with such contempt. Maybe it was the wolf in her, she thought. She watched Walter correct Anaid's stance and caught her looking him over in an odd way. I need to find some sort of book on wolf manners, she thought, puzzled. I'm missing something here.

Anaid was perfectly friendly to Seras herself. Perhaps years of service to vampires was a hard habit to break, the fledgling had thought, a little suspiciously. She had been too glad of the company to begrudge the strange girl, though. Helping Anaid overcome 300 years of culture shock kept her too busy to be insecure. The werewolf brushed most things off as magic and was satisfied with that explanation. Electric lights, indoor plumbing, carbonated drinks, it was all weird human sorcery as far as Anaid was concerned.

She had been told to cut her floor-length mane of silver-brown hair and she know wore it in a short ponytail. Getting her into a uniform had been so much of a struggle, that Seras had finally just told her to pick out something from the available clothes. Anaid had picked a standard pair of pants, a long-sleeved black shirt, boots, gloves, and a pair of metal kneepads. It was strange-looking, but no more so that Alucard's bright red get-up.

It took Seras a week to realize that Anaid couldn't read. She found a book on the social structure and communication of wolf packs and tried to show it to the werewolf, but the only part Anaid cared about was the pictures. She became defensive and snappy when questioned about it, and Seras soon read in her new book that wolves would go to great lengths to hide any weaknesses. By then, Anaid had discovered the radio.

She adored music and songs, grinding her teeth impatiently through radio commercials and DJ prattle to get to them. The day Walter brought her a discman with head phones he had been pounced on and soundly kissed. He had fled, leaving Seras to explain what all the buttons were for and how to be careful with cds. Anaid loved it and was rarely seen without it after that. She wasn't very particular what she listened to, as long as it was melodic.

The TV wasn't such a hit. All it took was a Kool-Aid commercial with the giant red pitcher of Kool-Aid bursting through a wall and screaming 'Oh YEAH!' to put her off it for good.

"What the HELL is that?" she had asked. Seras had been unable to explain it to her satisfaction, and the werewolf avoided the chattering screens whenever she found one after that. Integra was often seen watching her new charge's progress, but hadn't spoken to her directly since the first night. Then, a schoolbus in a small coastal town disappeared before any of the children were dropped off one afternoon. The bus was found in a gully with the roof peeled off. All the children were gone, but huge, ripping claw marks had torn through seats and metal. Hellsing was notified and orders were given.

Anaid was sent along for the first time. Seras and a group of eight soldiers were dropped off by the mangled bus a few hours before sundown. Seras had a feeling her main role in this was as babysitter to the werewolf, but couldn't work up any real bitterness over it. It was almost a relief not to be the one being babysat for once. And it wasn't as if Anaid was being difficult. She's not stupid, Seras told herself. She knows this is a test.

"What could have done damage like this?" one of the soldiers said, tapping his boot toe on a jagged curl of metal.

"I could." Anaid said softly. Only Seras heard her, but Anaid leaned into a hole and sniffed more noisily.

"What is it?" Seras asked her. The soldiers paused and waited for the answer too.

"There's something funny about the smell," Anaid's voice was muffled from under one of the seats. "The scent in here isn't the same as the one on the outside."

"What does that mean?" a soldier asked.

'They weren't afraid," Anaid went on. "There's no smell of fear."

"How could they not have been afraid?"

"If they died before the bus was torn apart," she answered. "There's no blood or stink. The bus was empty when it was damaged."

"Why would they bother to rip apart an empty bus then?" Seras asked, more to herself than to get an answer. Anaid answered anyway.

"As bait. To bring us here first."

"Is there a trail?" one of the soldier asked grimly. Anaid nodded and ran a short ways into the tall grass. She cast around for a moment, then hooked an arm at them to follow. Seras went first and the others fell into step behind her. Anaid ran along at a slow trot, bent almost double. She sniffed the air often and touched her fingers lightly along the path. Seras wondered if she was tempted to run on all fours. No one spoke as they went.

The werewolf led them on a long, winding trail. It started to rain lightly and the air became misty. They left the noise of the road faded behind them, and the damp grass was soon waist high. Anaid trotted down a culvert where a small trickle of a stream wandered around the rocks. She stopped suddenly and Seras nearly ran into her. A snarling growl rolled from the other woman's chest. It was an awful sound coming from anything human-shaped, and Anaid must have thought so too, because she shapeshifted into a massive wolf and stood glowering into the mist.

The soldiers tensed, itching to shoot at her. Seras sidestepped to block as much of the shapechanger as possible from them, just to be safe. Anaid's dusty silver hackles bristled and she took a stiff-legged step forward. Seras looked past her and was surprised to see a bridge over the tiny stream. It was an old stone bridge. The soldier in charge of the map was already looking for it on his chart and with a small rustle he crept to her side to report that it was a backroad, seldom used since the new highway had been put in.

She nodded, thanking him, but kept her eyes on Anaid. The wolf was headed slowly under the bridge into a perfect arched shape of darkness. Seras readied her cannon and crept after, signaling the men to do the same. As they grew nearer, weird jerky movements could be detected in the darkness. The silence of the countryside was so utter that Seras could hear the heartbeats of the men around her. She remembered the throb of blood in her ears from when she had been human and afraid.

The huge wolf stopped at the edge of the darkness, peering in. Her lips pulled back and her eyes narrowed to slits. A new sound ripped from her, a cry no animal should have been able to make. Anaid rose to stand on her haunches and her form flowed to make it possible. Her joints shifted into new alignments and her spine straightened enough to allow her to stand erect. Her paws lengthened into fingers, still padded and tipped with claws. This was the werewolf shape Seras had been expecting.

The soldiers all flinched from her. Their eyes were wide and terrified and their hand shook on their guns. Maybe it was something on a phenomenal level, Seras wondered suddenly. The primal human fears welling to the surface at the sight of their old predator, even though they should know by now that she was on their side. One had the presence of mind to shine a flashlight into the darkness under the bridge, following Anaid's furious gaze. Then, even Seras flinched.

v The eleven missing children hung from the old bridge's beams like hams. They had been ghouled as well, empty faces and clawing hands turning to the living soldiers with hunger. They had been chained up by their ankles and left to sway upside down. They were out of the reach of each other so they wouldn't have been able to cannibalize themselves and all their throats were cut, so they couldn't even make the gargling moans that ghouls usually made.

v "Why would they ghoul children?" Seras choked. Anaid stepped into the darkness, crouching a bit as one of the once-children took a wild swing for her ears. With another snarl and a jerk of her arm, she ripped its head off. It poured into sand along the ground. She did the same to each one, while the soldiers looked at Seras for some sort of signal. They all had guns ready. Were they upset that Anaid had done the job for them, or relieved that they hadn't had to add to this nightmare by shooting the child-shaped monsters? It was hard to tell.

"Spread out and look for any signs of the vampire," she told them and they fanned out without a word. Anaid was finished dispatching the children and rumbling to herself in the darkness. Seras saw her silhouette against the light from the other side of the bridge.

"Are you all right, Anaid?" she called. There was a growl for an answer. Seras gulped and then stepped into the dark to look for some evidence of the freaks who had done this. No true vampire would stoop so low, she told herself. There were traces of blood here, little sprays and spatters over the old stone. Eleven small piles of sand were mixing with the weak trickle of water. Outside, the rain began to pick up. The soldier with the map had gone up over the road and down the other side. He approached Anaid carefully and her head swiveled to fix him with a silver stare.

"Which way from here?" he asked her. She bared her teeth and he stepped back quickly, then flushed red. Embarrassed at being so skittish, he stepped back up and shoved the map towards her. "Two objectives: Find the children and remove any vampire threat if there is one. The job isn't over yet!" Anaid snapped at him in a half-lunge for his face. He nearly fell over a rock getting away from her. He went white from fear and then back to red when she turned her back and he realized she had only scared him again.

"Stop it both of you," Seras shouted. The last flush had been from anger and she had seen his hand drop to his gun. Surely Anaid had too. "You two know better! Anaid, turn back so I can talk to you." There was a very long pause where unease twisted around Seras' stomach._ Don't mess this up now_, she silently begged. _I can't help you if they think I don't have any sway over you!_ But then, with deliberate and insolent slowness, Anaid shifted back into a human form. She kept her claws, making her hands seem twice as big as was natural.

"You're our scout," she told the creature, keeping her voice calm. "Is there a trail from here?"

"No," Anaid's voice carried a rumbling undertone, as if a growl was trying to burst through the human words. Seras waited for more, but none came.

"What do you think happened?" she asked next._ Please cooperate...I can't force you and you know it, but we will BOTH be in for it with Sir Integra if we botch this mission!_

"The bus was driven here before anyone was afraid," the werewolf said. She tossed her head towards the bank to her right. "There are signs of the children sliding down this hill to get under the bridge. The bus drove away to be torn apart and left. Someone with no scent stayed here and ghouled the children and hung them up for us to find. When the bus driver came back, they drove off down the road and are gone now."

"Do we try to follow the road?" Seras' second asked. The man with the map had recovered from his attempt with Anaid and shook his head.

"It bleeds into a major intersection just four miles away," he said. "And from there to any number of other roads and the freeway."

"We report back then," Seras decided. "Make arrangements to notify the children's' families, and see if we can learn anything about who the bus driver was today. There wasn't an adult ghoul and there's no body."

There were nods all around and they began to head back the way they had come. Anaid fell into step with them and was given wide berth. She was radiating anger like a furnace. Even Seras felt uncomfortable being close to her, but the young vampire gritted her teeth and bore it. Isolation didn't help when she was upset, and she doubted Anaid was that much different. Wolves weren't meant to hunt alone, she remembered the other woman saying. Even if the only pack available was as jumpy and irate as this one, and their prey such unnatural monsters.

She allowed her shoulder to brush Anaid's as they walked. She wondered how the shapechanger would respond to such a gesture, and for a moment it seemed to be ignored. Then, Anaid bumped into her lightly from the side, shoulder and hip nudging hers. It was almost playful, especially paired with her stony expression. Seras felt a moment of relief and then of pride. She had just communicated through lupine body language to a surly and dangerous creature. The book was good for something!

The ride back to the mansion was a subdued one. Once home, Anaid disappeared to her own rooms and Seras went to make her report. After that there was nothing to do but go back to her chambers, where a cooler and bag of medical blood were already waiting. She looked at her next meal with some boredom. Maybe vampires were supposed to feed on blood, but it did get tedious. She had gone to her room as the other soldiers filed away to the cafeteria. They were looking forward to their dinner because it was Wednesday and that was always theme day. Last week had been Cajun cooking, which few of them had had the stomach for, but it was always fun to try and guess what was going to be served.

_While there's never any doubt for me_, Seras thought a little glumly. A shriek made her jump, sloshing the ice holding her dinner. It was an animal cry of pain and fury that could only have come from Anaid. Seras dashed from her room, following the sound. What could have happened now? she wondered. Alucard was the only one here who was strong enough to really hurt Anaid. But still the agonized howling rose. Then it faltered into a gagging sound.

Seras burst into the room where Anaid was usually fed to find the creature in her uber-wolf form. The huge creature was in terrible pain and blood gushed from her mouth. Other Hellsing agents had come running as well and they stood in a wide circle around her. Anaid's whole body jerked as she retched another gush of blood and meat onto the floor.

"What happened?" Seras screamed, running up to her. The wolf turned away, still gagging. Under the smell of blood and vomit there was a faint scent of burning. Anaid screamed again, a roar of anger this time. A few of the soldiers were actually laughing now.

"They say if you feed a dog gunpowder it makes them fierce," one said. "Maybe the cook overdid it." Anaid lashed out with her tail, the furry brush lengthening into a whip that wrapped around him. She flung him across the room and he hit the far wall with the sound of breaking bones.

"Anaid!" screamed Seras, horrified. Around her, she saw guns being drawn. _If they shoot her, she'll kill them all!_ she thought, remembering what Anaid had done to the first troop of Hellsing soldiers she'd met. Seras ran to block Anaid's way with outstretched arms. "Don't!" she shouted, to both the werewolf and the soldiers. Anaid screamed at her, spraying her with thickened blood.

"What is the meaning of this?" Integra's clear voice cut through the panic. The head of the Hellsing house had arrived at the scene. Her cold eyes swept over the crowd of armed soldiers, the pool of blood with a werewolf standing in it, the crumpled form of the soldier, and the panicked Seras.

"Sir Integra!" Seras called before anyone else could get in first. "Something's wrong with Anaid!" A new wave of pain hit the werewolf and she collapsed in the puddle, more blood spewing through her teeth. She shook her head, spraying more of it over the room. Seras turned and bent to help her up on impulse. Anaid suddenly leaped high over her , landing clumsily, but breaking into a sprint. The blood still flowed from her mouth, leaving red streaks down her sides as she ran. She jumped again, smashing through the first window big enough for her to get through.

"It isn't a full moon," Integra said over the sound of glass shattering on the ground outside. "Alucard!" The vampire melted halfway through a wall. He had probably been there the whole time. "Your new pet is on the loose. Retrieve the creature." Her gaze flickered over Seras. "Both of you. I want an explanation for this."

Alucard tipped his hat and swept out, Seras scuttling to keep up with him. She wiped at the blood that had been sprayed over her as she went. It was congealed already, sliding off her clothes in clumps. She brushed some off her arms and felt something scratch, then a burning pain that made her yelp. Alucard looked over his shoulder at her when she stopped in her tracks. She worked the handful of blood-sludge between two fingers and found little shavings of metal in it. The slivers were tiny, but sharp.

"Someone put silver filings in her food!" she squealed. She held her hands up to show him. "Look!" Alucard turned around completely to see, his glasses sliding down his nose. "It must have been eating her up from the inside! The pain would have been awful!"

"It would seem the moon-child's made some enemies," Alucard said. Then he started off again. Seras broke into a jog to catch up. Her mind was racing over who would have gone to the trouble to lace Anaid's food with silver. There was Daler of course, and the men who'd been so frightened of her on the mission. They wouldn't have had time though! she thought. It would have taken time to make the filings and then to lace the food with them. Someone had been planning this for awhile. It could have even been some of the soldiers who first found her, their revenge for the dead soldiers Anaid had fed on when she had revived.

Alucard was in no hurry. He followed the trail of blood over the Hellsing grounds until they reached a shadowed place in the back. Vampire sight showed the shivering outline of a human woman laying in the shrubs. Alucard stopped a short distance away and crossed his lanky arms over his chest. It was Seras who went creeping through the overgrowth to Anaid's side. The werewolf was still in terrible pain. She retched again, but no more blood came up. Seras hoped she was starting to heal internally.

"Come out," she said. "The moonlight healed you before. Come lay in the light." Anaid raised her head to look at Seras. Blood trails snaked over the lower half of her face, and her eyes were unearthly, wide and colorless. She looked ghastly, but Seras held her arms out to her anyway. "Come on. I'll help you." Anaid made a choking sound and buried her face in her arms. Her body shook with the force of her coughing. Seras tried again, but she wouldn't budge.

"On your feet, moon-child!" Alucard barked suddenly. Anaid jerked at the sound of his voice. "You are no cub to be coddled. You have been asked once and ordered now. Get up." Slowly, Anaid straightened her shaking arms, lifting her upper body from the ground. Her blood-matted hair hid her face. She walked her knees up to an all-fours position. Her body spasmed suddenly and she hacked a clump of clotted blood up and spat it out.

"It isn't your fault," Seras told her. "Someone tainted your food with silver. Sir Integra won't be angry with you once she knows." Anaid spit again, then pulled her hands back to rest on her thighs and heaved her torso up to a kneeling position. She was breathing heavily, and her hair still hid her eyes. After a moment to steel herself for it, Anaid staggered upright. She had to bend over to cough again, arms braced against her knees.

She was blood-soaked in her human form, her black shirt shiny with it and the blue pants stained dark. _No one would have dared do this to me.._.Seras thought with sympathy. _My Master wouldn't have allowed it. Anaid serves me too..I shouldn't have let this happen to her._ Weak moonlight filtered down through the trees and in the dappled light, Anaid seemed to recover a bit faster. She stood up again and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing the mess to her ear.

"Let's get you cleaned up," Seras said gently. Anaid still didn't speak, but she walked unsteadily after the vampires as they turned back towards the mansion. Seras slowed her pace to walk beside her. The burned smell in the blood was keeping her from wanting any, and she felt guilty for even thinking of drinking Anaid's blood, but then she had to concentrate on not licking her lips to see if any had splashed there in the commotion.

Integra was waiting as soon as they came through the door. Alucard stepped aside like a good serving boy, but Seras didn't move from Anaid's shoulder. When neither Alucard or Anaid made any sound, Seras screwed up some courage and spoke for them.

"Sir Integra," she said, holding out her bloody glove with the filings still gleaming in it. "Someone laced her food with these! It burned when I got scratched with one. It's silver! I think it burned through her throat and stomach."

"Is that why she's so quiet this time?" Integra looked over the bloody mess with a raised eyebrow. "I've already had a word with the cooks who prepared the meat today. They don't know anything, but in the future Walter will be the only one allowed to feed her. Is that clear?" Anaid nodded. Her breathing was still ragged, but her hands had tightened into fists. Alucard had already disappeared again, leaving Seras to stand with her. Integra also turned to go.

"Let's get you cleaned up..." Seras said, hesitant to touch Anaid. The werewolf nodded again and followed her away.

By morning, she was fine, bright-eyed and scarfing down sausages. Walter had probably never cooked for such an enthusiastic diner before. Maybe Anaid just wasn't used to eating cooked food or maybe she was just thrilled to be eating something that didn't burn from the inside.


	3. Chapter 3

#3 CHILDHOOD FEARS

It had been years since Integra had hesitated to turn the lights off. Tonight held a chill, though, an apprehension she hadn't felt since she'd been a child, afraid of stories. Her uncle had once told her a tale to keep her from roaming the halls at night. "If you get out of bed," he had told her. "Raw-head-and-Bloody-Bones will be waiting under your blankets when you get back." It had backfired, of course, because then she had been afraid to go BACK to bed. The same fear touched her now. She was afraid that something would get her.

She squashed the feeling quickly and turned off the lights. She was going to bed early to try and ease a headache she could feel coming. What did she have to be afraid of? She was well-trained and armed enough to take care of herself and she had a whole army at her beck and call. And beyond even that she had a most powerful servant. He would be impossible though if he detected even a trace of unease in her, especially over something as silly as a half-remembered bedtime story. She laid her throbbing head on her pillow and forced her eyes closed.

Elsewhere, the same creeping unease spread through the whole mansion. Soldiers fell silent and turned on more lights. TVs were turned down so that nervous ears could listen for whatever approached. A deep, primal fear set over the house like an intangible snow drift. It affected the vampires too. Seras found herself pacing. Her hands clenched into fists, nails digging into her palms. Her intuition howled at her. Something was going to happen. It hovered over her like a storm about to break, like the smell of blood in the air. When Anaid popped in, Seras all but bared her teeth at the werewolf.

"I know just the thing for that," Anaid chuckled, flashing her own too-sharp teeth at her. "Let's go hunting. Girl's night out."

"No..." muttered Seras, turning away. Her stomach clenched as tight as her fists at the thought of dragging something down and sinking her teeth into it.

"Oh come onnnnnn," urged Anaid. She leaned over on a table on her elbows, still grinning.

"No!" Seras snapped, annoyed at her just for being so damned cheerful.

"It'll be fun," Anaid sang. When Seras just glared at her, she added in a sly undertone. "All the cool vampires do it."

"GO AWAY!" the vampire suddenly raged. She slammed her own gloved hands on the table with a cracking sound. Anaid backed off, but her grin stayed on._ It wasn't even real submission_, fumed Seras as the werewolf strolled off without another word._ I'm just a 'cub' to her. Just like everyone else..._

Leaving her to her fuming, Anaid swept out through the nearest door. It was only then that she felt the chill. Werewolves aren't afraid of much and unlike humans, had very few primordial fears. Yet, stepping out into the yard, Anaid's easy-going smirk stiffened on her face. She looked around, sniffing the air. There was nothing. Then she looked up. Hordes of crows lined the roof, every tree branch, and every telephone wire. Their eyes gleamed green. As she gaped at them, the lights from the streets and buildings nearby began to go out one by one. A faint murmur of voices became audible on the wind. She turned and ran back inside.

Unfamiliar panic lit in her chest. The mansion appeared empty. The windows were full of the gleam of bird eyes. As she ran from room to room, Anaid saw a shadow flicker over a mirror and her hair bristled. She gritted her teeth, then stood very still. She listened, hearing tvs and deep breathing. Somewhere there was the click of keyboard keys. Walter was on his computer again.

Then, the unmistakable sound of an Elder Song reached her. It was the Song of the Snake, used to lull an enemy before an attack. The panic twisted inside her again, but she bit it back. She could feel eyes and forced herself to walk calmly toward where she was pretty sure Integra was. She came to a halt at the staircase. Something was there. She was sure of it with all the certainty of a child afraid to hang their feet over the edge of the bed. Something was there, and it would grab her if she got close enough.

Anaid swallowed to wet her dry throat. Still giving no outward sign of her unease, she turned and cut down another hallway, heading towards the typing sound. Plans flickered and flashed through her mind, none of them clear enough for her to make out. It was all she could do not to break into a run, and she threw open the door to the computer room without knocking.

Walter half-turned and found the werewolf looking more wild-eyed than usual. Before he could ask her what was wrong, she had glomped him in a full body hug. She flattened her chest against his back and wrapped her arms around his chest, not letting him get up from the chair.

"Time to go upstairs," she whispered, nuzzling his ear. He sat frozen and rigid in her arms.

"Miss Dummanios," he began, trying not to sputter. "What are you doing?"

"I never properly thanked you..." she purred, rubbing against him.

"You call this proper?" he sputtered a bit, despite himself. Then, he looked at her sideways. "Have you been watching TV after all?"

"Come away from the window, and I'll tell you..." She plucked his ponytail holder off with her teeth and combed his hair out with her fingers.

"I don't know what you're playing at," he said, standing up quickly and turning to face her. She didn't try to keep him still, but pressed tight to his chest, squeezing him close again. She was still thin from her long imprisonment, but she was also still alarmingly strong. Before he could twist away from her, she licked his ear and then whispered into it.

'We're being watched. Is there a back way to get upstairs?" She felt a whole new tension go through him. He had finally caught on. There was a pause and then he wrapped his arms around her too.

"What's so important upstairs?" he asked her. She kissed him and then smiled.

"Just WAIT till you see..." she promised. He nodded, and then led her back to the hall. She kept her arms around him, which he found awkward. Her silvery eyes were wide and he could feel her heart pounding against his side. He found himself wondering what could startle the creature so. Hoping no one would see them, he let one arm wrap around her waist in case they were being watched still. And what harm could there be in enjoying the close contact with a young body at his age? he thought half-guiltily. Even if she was four times older than him.

He took her up the butler's elevator, noticing that she clung a little tighter when the floor started to move. She jumped when the doors slid open, then finally released him to sniff the dim hallway beyond.

"It's not here yet," she whispered.

"What is it?" he asked back. She reached for his hand and pulled him out into the hall.

"Something old," she said. "Something that shouldn't be here..." Walter strained his ears to listen. Slowly, the fear that was affecting everyone else began to tingle along the back of his neck. The first thing he thought of was getting to Integra. He started down the hall to her bedroom. Anaid hung on to his hand, jogging to keep pace with him.

The shadows thickened as they went. Childhood fears revived and gibbered in his ears. Was Integra all right? An apprehension had laid hold of him, that his master might be in trouble. A touch of relief calmed him when he caught sight of her door. Then, Anaid gasped and yanked him up short. He turned to tell her off and found her staring in plain horror. He followed her gaze and saw a deep blackness spreading from underneath the stairs, flowing like ink to puddle around Integra's door.

"It's coming," whispered Anaid. She moved to block Walter with her own body. A creature stepped out from under the stairs. A sickly sweet smell of decay came with it. It was huge, twice the height of Alucard. If its skin had still been attached, it might have resembled a broad-shouldered troll, but it had been flayed at some point in fairytale history, every muscle and sinew exposed and dripping on the mansion's spotless floor. Over its raw flesh it wore a cape made of human skins, carelessly stitched together. Most of them were small, some hardly more than toddler-sized.

Worst of all was the hood. A cowl had been made of a child's skin, the eyes left as holes for the creature to wear like a mask. It had wet eyes back in its sockets. They flicked over them once and dismissed them. It stepped forward to brush its skinned knuckles on Integra's door. Walter dashed forward to stop it, despite Anaid's warning cry. His wires spun around the creature and ripped tight. Blood sprayed, but the wires didn't cut very deep. Its head turned and refocused on them. Anaid made a dismayed noise.

Then there was a gunshot and a spray of blood. Alucard had appeared behind the monster and fired into the back of its head. The grisly head was knocked forward and blood splashed from the impact, then the bullet fell to the floor with a wet clink. The monster turned to squint at him as his maniacal grin faded. They all stood there, Alucard with the gun held out, Walter keeping the wires taut, the monster not seeming too troubled by either of them, and Anaid, looking disgusted at it all.

"You can't kill it with weapons," she snapped at them. Integra's door suddenly flew open. The shouting and shooting right outside her door had woken her, and she had taken a moment to arm herself before flinging it wide. The monster turned to look at her and its fleshless face formed a huge smile. She gasped, but was already firing, bullets smacking into the exposed tissues. Alucard fired again too. As before, the bullets never even penetrated.

It threw an arm towards Integra, the wires dragging Walter forward. Alucard was suddenly behind Integra. She dodged backwards to avoid one long-armed grasp and ran right into another one. Alucard scooped her up like a new bride and then was gone in a flicker of black. For the first time, the monster seemed upset. It bellowed, a sound that vibrated through the silent mansion. Then, it stopped and tilted it's head as if listening.

Anaid suddenly sang out. It was a weird sound, without words or even a real tune. The creature turned to look at her. It seemed to hesitate, looking at Integra's door and then back to Anaid. Without breaking her song, Anaid took a step backwards. The creature stepped after her. Anaid knew some Elder Songs too. There wasn't a way she knew of to kill the boogie man, but she could lead it off somewhere. Even boogie men could be enspelled.

It was a long way to morning and sunlight was the only sure method she knew of to get rid of it. She could only make it vulnerable for a moment. Still singing, Anaid backed down towards the stairs. The creature followed. Walter released the wires as they started down the stairs. Anaid shapeshifted as she went. The pitch and quality of her voice changed, but the song didn't miss a note. The werewolf led the monster down to the base of the stairs and around to the shadow underneath.

The monster's body became less tangible in the shadows, melting into the darkness. Anaid lunged forward and the Song ended in a snap as she bit through it's neck. The body dissolved and the head screeched once before vanishing too. Anaid stepped back from the shadow quickly and spit to get the taste of old skin and blood out of her mouth. She changed back to human form and scrubbed at her mouth with the back of her arm.

Alucard dropped from the ceiling with Integra in his arms. Integra composed herself quickly

"What WAS that?" she demanded.

"In my day, they called him Raw-Head-and-Bloody-Bones," Anaid said, wiping at the blood splattered on her face and chest. There was a catch in her voice. The Song had taken more effort than it had looked.

"I'm hardly a child to believe in such things," Integra said, without much conviction.

"Seeing is believing, lady," Anaid gave herself a light shake. She licked her lips and grinned. "More things walk the earth than you know. Vampires aren't the only things that feed on humanity."

"What do you know of it?" Integra asked, looking as imposing as she could in her nightgown.

"It's a fairytale monster," Anaid said. "The old stories are true. It lives under the stairs and grabs your feet as you walk by. It eats all of you except your skin which it wears to cover its own flayed hide. It can't be killed, but it can be inconvenienced."

"So, it could come back."

"I've never seen one come all the way from under the stairs. It would take something powerful to bring it into the open...after a specific target. .." She glanced sideways at Integra. "What enemies do you have that use Elder Sorcery?"

Elsewhere, a tall man stood over the Bloody Table. It was an ancient slab of stone with four blood channels etched into the top of it. Instead of blood, there was a pile of sandy dust in the center of it. The man leaned over the table and bit into his own tongue with a tearing sound. A thread of his blood spilled out into the dust, which dissolved into blood itself. It flowed out to fill the channels.

"Cleo," said the man and a ghost was pulled painfully into existence from the blood. It was the tousled vampire in the mini skirt. There was still a black bullet hole through her head.

"The guardian wouldn't wake up!" she cried.

"The Dummanios clan is truly dead," the man stood up straight again. "Selkah!" A shape moved in the dark behind him and stepped closed. "Rawhead is gone. Her scent is cold, but Anaid was taken by the same who killed Cleo. Retrieve the body."


	4. Chapter 4

#4 DIVIDED LOYALTIES

Three days later, the sun was high in the sky when Selkah came to London. He had followed the scent and found the mansion and hidden himself in one of the trees on the grounds. He saw a long silver car leave and felt a powerful presence go with it. He watched the troops and soldiers run back and forth, and when that tired him, he began to sing. The Song of the Beast hummed through the Hellsing mansion. Soldiers turned on each other like pit bulls over nothing. One of the maids actually growled at Walter and he bared his own teeth in a predatory grin, knowing full well he could kill her easily. She must've sensed it too, because she hissed like a cat and ran away from him.

The Song unraveled further, vibrating past stone into deep, dark places. It snapped Seras awake in her coffin and she tore out of it with a scream.

Asleep in her own room, Anaid jerked awake too. It was the sound of Seras exploding that woke her more than the Song. Already so bestial, Anaid didn't have much feralness left that needed waking. She heard the splinter of wood as Seras kicked the door into the hallway and a second screech of vampiric madness. Anaid got up and came out in her sleep-clothes (plain cotton undies and an old t-shirt Walter had salvaged from a dead soldiers belongings). She heard the Song as it spun through the building. She growled to herself and felt her hackles bristle. It was a new moon though, and she didn't change. She forgot her half-dressed state and ran down the stairs, hearing cries and smashes as Seras rampaged. The humans in the mansion were still being affected, and the ones in Seras' way fought back a moment before the young vampire ripped them in half. A few of them even attacked her first.

Anaid jumped over a banister to reach the lower floor without touching the flight of stairs. She ran lightly past grappling humans and had to jump over a few mauled corpses. Warm blood splashed under her bare feet and she left footprints over the tiled floor. She had half a second to toy with the notion of apologizing to Walter for the mess before she rounded a corner and tackled Seras. The young vampire turned on her with a snarl. One gloved hand stabbed forward to smash Anaid's ribcage with inhuman strength, but was seized in a grip that suddenly had claws. Even in human form, Anaid was powerful.She wasn't quite a match for a true vampire as she was, but she wasn't really trying to kill Seras. They fought up and down the hallway, knocking over end tables and tearing down curtains.

The dark moon was a help again. Anaid didn't want to change for this fight. It would be entirely too easy to lose her own control and control was weakest when the moon was brightest. As weak as its influence was right now, the Song still pulled at her. It was hard to hold back and still contain Seras. Something shattered and Anaid felt shards of glass dig into her back as she rolled. She left an opening and the vampire sank her teeth into Anaid's shoulder. Werewolf blood filled Seras' mouth and burned into her. It was like a gulp of hot acid. It burned away the affect of the Song and sent the vampire into a howling frenzy. The Song of the Beast's spell shattered. Seras threw Anaid aside and sprinted away. Two more windows cracked as she went.

Anaid got up with a grimace. The Song still pulled at her, but at least it wouldn't have hold over Seras anymore. There was nothing like a taste of werewolf blood to take the steam out of a vampire. Anaid almost grinned at the thought. Werewolves didn't like the taste of undead either, to be honest. Vampires tasted like ashes and blood and very old leather, but the taste of them didn't send a shapeshifter running crazy. Poor Seras, she thought suddenly. She'll be a wreck once it wears off... Anaid rubbed her shoulder and found it already healed. A hearty shake sent the shards of glass tickling back to the floor. She set off after the vampire at a trot. There was a wide blood trail where Seras had gone and a door ripped off its hinges further down.

Outside, Seras had run into a tree and ripped most of the bark off one side of it. She couldn't see or think past the pain in her mouth and throat. There was only the need to rip things apart until there was enough blood to drown the burning in. Panting and snarling at nothing, she crouched at the foot of the tree and looked quickly around the grounds. Part of her was wary of being seen, another just hoped to see something to kill. There was nothing though. No one had left the building after she had.

As some time passed, she grew calmer and fell to licking the blood off her hands and arms. The taste soothed her and bit by bit, she came back to herself. That was when she felt the eyes. She looked around again, less frantically this time. She didn't see or smell anything, but a soft, throaty chuckle made her jump. She got to her feet and smoothed her uniform down, expecting to hear Alucard's voice mocking her. When none came, she called out, a little timidly.

"Master? Is that you?" There was a faint rustle and a fainter thump and a creature Seras had never seen dropped to the grass beside her. It was man-shaped, but it didn't smell human. It didn't smell like anything really, which her vampire senses didn't care for. The silvery sheen over its eyes reminded her of Anaid, so she was cautiously assuming it was some sort of werewolf.

Selkah was only a little shorter than Paladin Anderson, but even more broad-shouldered. His hair was an autumn red-brown and his eyes were yellow. A ragged leather vest did nothing to cover a body marked over with scars. Over his chest, was another Mark of Devotion, but his was much messier than Anaid. The scar was wide and jagged, as if it had been opened over and over again. He grinned openly at Seras, but the expression faded when Anaid slid into view. They stared at each other in obvious disbelief, the strapping male in tattered leather and the much smaller female in a faded t-shirt. Neither of them moved, except for their eyes. They knew each other, Seras realized. Anaid spoke first.

"What have you done to yourself?" she asked softly. She was looking in horror at his gouged Mark and her nostrils flared wide at his lack of any scent. Selkah was too startled by the sight of her to reply. Then a shot rang out and a hole opened in his chest in a spray of blood. Alucard had felt Seras' madness when the song had hit and had come to check on her. Selkah staggered and turned with a snarl. His teeth lengthened and his sideburns bristled, growing longer. The bullet hole closed neatly as he moved, leaving no scar. What in the world had left the other scars, Seras wondered, if a blessed silver bullet delivered by the Jackal didn't leave one. Anaid called to Selkah, but he ignored her. He must've recognized what Alucard was, because his eyes widened and he sprang away before the vampire could fire again. Anaid ran after him, shouting his name.

"Traitor!" Selkah screamed at her as he began to fade from sight. "The lord will give me your skin to wear!" The look of horrified shock that smashed over Anaid's expression was so unlike her that Seras blanched too. Whatever that had meant to her, it hit like a ton of bricks. Selkah had simply vanished.


	5. Chapter 5

#5 PACKMATES

After that, the first priority was to clean up before Integra got home. Walter took over. Seras had tried to explain what happened, but her memory of it wasn't very clear either. Walter had waved her down after a minute.

"Whatever it was affected us all," he said. "The are seven fatalities total. Only four of them are yours. Perhaps Alucard can explain it to Sir Hellsing when she returns."

"Perhaps that's where he is now," she grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest. Her Master had disappeared as soon as the fight was over. He was probably tracking Selkah, but it was just like him to disappear when there were questions to be asked. She was glad Walter was there to keep some sort of authority over the place. Anaid walked by again. She had been sent to get dressed, and had pulled on her pants, but was still barefoot. The werewolf was obviously shaken, but trying not to look it. She paced the halls like an asylum inmate in her too-large shirt, haunted eyes not even noticing the debris.

Seras fell into step next to her until she stopped to stare back. Seras nodded towards the punctures in the shirt's shoulder seam.

"I'm sorry I bit you," she said. "That's the one part I do remember."

"Meant for you to," Anaid muttered. "Knew that would make you snap. My fault."

"Oh..."That put Seras back for a moment. "Who was that?" she asked. Anaid was silent for so long that she had to add. "I know you knew him. It was clear you recognized each other..." There was another long stretch of quiet. "All right," Seras tried again. "Who is that he thinks you betrayed?"

Anaid's whole being flinched at that. Her eyes clenched shut and her lips pulled back from her teeth in a grimace of pain that was instantly a snarl of rage as her eyes opened again. They had gone from silver to white-hot. Seras had been about to apologize again and bit it back with a gulp. Anaid's shocked/pained expression was gone. Now there was only fire.

"He told me I was the last one left," she growled. Seras had pursed her lips to make the word 'who' but Anaid told her. "Bastion. I had to stay and protect the childe because I was the only one. He left me there and went out to fight. The soldiers got in and speared me. If they had had any guts at all they would've finished me off then. But they were too afraid to get close enough to do it. So they left me there."

"They must've thought you were dead," Seras said, trying to be comforting. "He looked as surprised as you were. I don't think he expected to see you, but why else would he have come here?"

"Selkah was Pack Second. He was always cunning enough to let someone else be in charge. If things were as they should be, he wouldn't have been alone."

"Because wolves weren't meant to hunt alone."

"What is he then, if he isn't a wolf." Anaid's mood had faded from fury as quickly as it had leaped to it. "This isn't right. " She looked out a broken window and her eyes narrowed to slits.

"What childe were you protecting?" Seras asked, glad to change the subject. Anaid sucked in a deep breath.

"Bastion had something like a goddaughter," she explained. "A ward, if you will. Her name was Christiana. He was going to keep her until she was old enough to 'adopt', if you know what I mean. Bastion said that infant-shaped immortals were too tragic and that tragedy got tiresome too quickly." Seras thought of Helena, but kept quiet. She noticed that Anaid's eyes always wandered to where the moon would be in another day when it reappeared. The invisible new moon still pulled at her.

"You said something about hunting the other day," Seras said when the werewolf went quiet again. "Do you still want to go?" Anaid looked at her sideways. Seras shrugged in what she hoped was a playful way. "Unless you want to face Sir Integra when she sees this mess?"

"You talked me into it," the werewolf agreed. "Where's there woods near here?"

"We'll have to take the car," Seras said, starting for the stairs. "Before someone hands us a broom."

It was easy enough to leave. They found one of the utility cars down in the garage and left the grounds as quietly as possible. Seras drove to the nearest forest, well outside city limits. The road went from paved to gravel to pot-holed dirt. They bounced along that until Seras found a shoulder wide enough to park the car and stopped. Both females got out to look around. Anaid inhaled deeply through her nose, scanning the trees on either side of the road.

"Where does it go?" she asked, tossing her head at the road.

"I've never been all the way to the end," Seras said. "There's supposed to be an old abbey out there or something. I think some tours still make it that far, but not many." Anaid nodded and then was gone into the underbrush with only a rustle.

"Hey, wait!"Seras dashed after her. Anaid was trotting along so it was easy to catch up. The trees were old and wide, and there was a thick, spongy layer of yellow leaves on the ground. The sun had begun to sink and sunbeams that made it through the canopy were angled. It smelled nice, Seras thought. It smelled old and alive, green and gold. Were there any rural vampires, maybe? Probably not. The hunting would be too sparse. And it was easier to notice people disappearing in the woods than it would be in a crowded city. Still, it might be nice to pretend to be peaceful and live a hermit's unlife out here. Especially now that there was nothing more dangerous than she was out here, a darker thought said. She chose to ignore it. Seras was a city girl and she knew it, but she could enjoy the woods almost as much as Anaid did. She glanced over at the werewolf and was pleased to see the beginning of a smile.

The two of them ran through the trees for hours. Every now and then, Seras would wonder if they should head back to the car before it got too dark, but then Anaid would find something to distract her with. They dug up a nest of rabbits, which Anaid ate. Seras couldn't bring herself to eat one. They surprised a cinnamon-colored fox and chased it until it ducked underground. Anaid found some deer tracks along a stream bank, but the trail was too old to bother with. Seras was just about to suggest they start back when Anaid flicked an ear upwards and they both listened to a helicopter approach. It came in low over the trees heading east. What they could see of it through the trees, it looked vaguely military.

"Do you think they're looking for us?" Anaid asked.

"Sir Integra wouldn't send a helicopter after us," Seras said, a little uncertainly. "Maybe it's a special tour for some VIP they didn't want to bounce to death on the road."

"Let's take a look," Anaid started off towards the direction the helicopter had gone. "Before we head home."

"It starting to get dark already," Seras argued, but fell into a jog behind the werewolf anyway.

"What's the worst that could happen?" Anaid called back. "You and me are the scariest things in this woods!"

Seras couldn't argue with that. They went on until Anaid stopped at a spring that was bubbling up around some rocks and squinted at it.

"This smells familiar..." Anaid said. "But it doesn't look the same."

"Well, you've been out of the loop for a long time," Seras said. "Were you ever here before? You know, 300 years ago? That was the last time you were running loose wasn't it?"

"Maybe." There was a shrug and they started off again. After awhile, the trees began to thin and gave way to a field. In the middle of the field was a hill, and on that hill was a huge stone building. The blades of the helicopter were visible over a stone fence. Anaid led the way along the edge of the trees and along another wall for a closer look. They were crouched behind the wall, peeking over at a group of people in black hurrying over to a smaller stone building in the abbey's cemetery. Seras was a little disappointed not to see any celebrities, but forgot about that as soon as she saw a much taller man waiting while shovels were being handed out to others.

It had to be him, she realized, stomach sinking even as she shrank a little lower too. When he turned slightly, she got a glimpse of a scar across his cheek and the gleam of glasses before she dove for cover. A scraping sound had Anaid leaning forward. She could see the people opening the smaller building and a lever bar being passed inside.Then, Seras was pulling at her sleeve, mouthing words at her. The vampire was unable to make a sound for fear of being heard. Anaid gave her an annoyed look.

"What?" she whispered.

"We have to go!" Seras gasped. "That's Section XIII!"

"Oh. So?"

"See that big man?"

"Where?"

Seras risked another look over the wall. There was no sign of Anderson now. Her stomach constricted even tighter.

"Shit," she whimpered. "Let's go. Come on. Come ON!" Anaid made a puzzled face and added a small sound of contempt, but allowed herself to be pulled away. Seras broke into a run, bent low to stay behind the wall. Her fear was radiating from her body in almost visible waves.

"What is it?" Anaid asked. She looked over her shoulder and they weren't being followed. "What's so bad about them?"

"Later!" Seras didn't dare look back. She could see the darkening woods ahead of her. If they could just get there, she told her panicked thoughts. They could disappear in the dark, get safely home. A gleam of light flared up in the shadows and she went skidding to a stop as it became a cross. Anaid's hand grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and yanked her backwards. Already off balance trying to stop, Seras fell backwards as a bayonet whished past her nose. She wasn't sure if she was hearing the sound of it thudding into Anaid's chest or her own body smacking into the ground.

Anderson charged them both and more blades rained down. Anaid moved to block Seras and to take all the stabs in her own body. The impact jolted her backwards a step and there was a pause while Seras stared up at her in horror, Anaid stared at the bayonet hilts, and Anderson stared at them both.

"These aren't silver..." Anaid said after a moment. "Why do they hurt?"

There was the sound of Anderson inhaling to deliver one of his usual harangues, but before his first Amen made it out, Anaid locked eyes with him. She sang the Song of the Snake, and it stopped the paladin in his tracks. As she sang, the werewolf plucked the blades out and dropped them. Anderson never moved. He couldn't. The song had him as trapped as a bird in a snake's gaze. Almost. A tremor went through his tense arms, making the blades in his hands vibrate.

Anaid kept her eyes on his for another long moment. She could sense the need to fight and kill churning under the surface. This wasn't an ordinary human. Maybe Seras was so terrified for a reason. It was hard to find a will strong enough to throw off an Elder Song. Still, it would hold him for a little while.

"How do you do that?" Seras was already backing away. "Are the songs spells?"

"All spells started out as songs," Anaid turned her back on the paralyzed priest which made Seras scuttle a little faster. "But then again, everything does! Some say that the first thing to exist in the world was the Song of God." Behind her, Anderson's fists clenched a little tighter at that. Anaid looked over her shoulder at him.

"He's getting loose already," Seras gasped. "We have to go!"

"Already? Wow." Anaid sounded almost impressed.

"Let's go!" Seras was already breaking into a run.

"You don't even want to see what they're doing over there?" Anaid called, teasing.

"No! Come ON!" The werewolf turned to give Anderson another careful look in the eye before starting after Seras. A scared vampire could move very quickly, and Seras was frantic and gesturing behind the wheel of the car by the time Anaid trotted out of the trees. If she'd been alive, she would've been sweating.

"Am I to gather you've met that poor man before?" Anaid was still teasing her. "Who is he?"

"A priest, a killer, a regenerator..." Seras hit the gas as soon as Anaid's door closed. She gave the werewolf a glare. "He'll kill us both!"

"Why?"

"He's sworn to rid the world of vampires, heretics, that sort of thing..." The car bounced and swerved on the road's potholes. Seras had turned the headlights on out of habit. "He wants to kill me for being a vampire, but he'll gladly kill any human agents we have, too. After that little stunt, he'll be after you now, screaming about black magic..."

"Why?"

"Religious reasons."

"Oh. Humans still bother with that, do they?"

"Er... well, yes..."

Then, bayonets smashed through the the windshield.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER #6

Just a note: I didn't even try to write Anderson's brogue. Just try to imagine it.

Seras squeaked and ducked down beneath the steering wheel as a blade shot through the steering column and out through the horn. The horn started going off and both her feet slammed down on the brake. The car swerved crazily, hit one of the more awful potholes sideways, and went over on its side. Gravel sprayed and metal squealed over the blaring horn as the car slid to a messy stop, passenger side down. Seras found herself with a close view of the cigarette lighter and slowly sat up. She hadn't been stabbed, which was a small miracle of its own. i But I'm going to need a big one to get out of this /i , she thought miserably.

There was the crunch of gravel underfoot and she peeked up through the shattered glass to see an unusually tall, trench-coated silhouette walking slowly toward them in the headlight glare. She heard the sound of little pieces of glass being shaken out of hair and Anaid sat up next to her. The werewolf had two more bayonets sticking out of her, one from her neck and one from her chest. They didn't seem to trouble her, except for unpinning herself from the seat. They both looked out the ruined windshield at the advancing paladin.

"Shall I take him on for a bit?" Anaid asked, tossing her head towards him. Her ponytail had come undone and her hair was a mane around her face. The hilt sticking out of her neck wiggled as she spoke. It made Seras feel sick and brought back the memory of her own first encounter with Anderson.

"No. He'll kill us." Seras braced her feet in the floor and shoved backwards. The already damaged seat crumbled under vampiric strength and gave her room to maneuver away from the blades. She started fumbling for the door.

"You run then." Seras pulled the two blades out and started to crawl out through the windshield. "Tell the lord and his master that you were attacked."

"You can't fight him!" Seras had to throw her shoulder into the door to get it open. There were miles of dark woods between them and home, but they might make it with survivable injuries if they ran.

"Can." Anaid was already out of the wreckage. She looked over her shoulder at Seras. Her eyes had what Seras had come to think of as the 'fight-light' in them. She got to see it a lot in Alucard. But even Alucard had never managed to kill the priest. Panic made her dance, but she didn't want to run first.

"No! He'll kill you!" Seras looked from Anaid to Anderson frantically. "Let's go!"

"No. He'll kill YOU. Run."

Seras started to argue, but Anaid pinned the vampire with a look cold as January. "Just go." She jumped down to the road and started walking towards Anderson. Seras hesitated another second, then broke and ran off into the woods. Anderson watched her disappear into the trees and then gave his full attention to Anaid. He didn't look pleased.

"You're a dealer of unnatural magic," the priest said. Anaid guessed he was still upset about being paralyzed. "In alliance with the most evil of undead monsters."

Anaid raised an eyebrow at that. Her stab wounds weren't closing, but they weren't bleeding either. The dark moon was probably the reason for that, rather than any blessing the blade might've had. They still prickled with pain, deep inside, but it was bearable.

"Seras?" she asked. "She's no monster. She means too well to be any good at it. You sure put the horrors on her, though."

"The draculina got away from me once. And she left you behind, the coward."

"Now you're not being nice," Anaid shook a finger at him. "You create the fear and then condemn the fearful? Hardly fair."

They had walked the showdown path right up to each other. If Anaid was unnerved at all, her body posture gave no sign of it. She walked like an alpha female faced with an outsider wolf. Anderson towered over her, but she inclined her head to keep eye contact as she got closer. She stopped just inside the reach of his arm and looked up at him.

She had to be a demon, Anderson thought. Only the devil's confidence would allow her to be so fearless. The marks of his blades were still on her, red lines that didn't bleed. Her breath misted in the headlights, so she wasn't a vampire. But there was more evil in the world than just vampires. He could smell her, a weird, cold scent like green leaves in an early frost. Whatever magic the creature used had caught him by surprise. He was tense to stab before she got a chance to sing again, but she didn't seem inclined to. She just tilted her head slightly, like a mongoose.

Rather than wait for whatever new trick she had, he lunged forward. A rain of blades flew out ahead of him. Instead of fighting back, Anaid just dodged. It seemed to irk the paladin much more than actually fighting him would have. She danced, skipping backwards and twisting in and out between the lightning-like strikes. They moved off the road and back into the woods that way. When the headlights went out of sight and they were in darkness again, it occurred to Anderson that he was being led into a trap and he halted for a moment. Anaid slid to a stop as well. They were both a little out of breath, and they looked each other over again.

"You're no vampire," Anderson said. "And no human either. Some new kind of freak."

"The vampire's master gave me that speech already," Anaid set her fists on her hips. The mention of Integra took him back a fraction. "And I'll tell you the same thing I told her. I'm not a freak, and I'm not new. I was here before your pile of rocks ever got piled." She waved a hand back towards the church. "I was a child then, I'll admit, but we were here long before humans starting breeding by the cityful."

He lowered his eyebrows into a perplexed half-squint. Her tone was perfectly friendly. If Alucard had said the same thing, it would've dripped with menace and ego. Anaid was just telling the story. It was hard to shake the feeling that she would be equally content to sit here and chat about nothing as she would be to fight him again.

"What kind of beastie are you calling yourself then?" Anderson asked. He had two bayonets in hand and brought them up in the cross pose. Anaid glanced at her weak reflection in the blades and smiled at it. He didn't care what she was, she could tell. He was only mildly curious as to what she had to say for herself.

"They used to call us werewolves," She saw his grip tighten and her smile became a smirk. "So we took the name they gave us."

"You're a living monster, allied with undead monsters. A perversion of nature." The blades moved into an X.

"What would you know about nature?" Anaid tossed her hair back. She still sounded good-natured. "If you were natural, vampires wouldn't run from you. What are you that monsters are afraid?" She made a grand gesture with one hand and claws grew from her fingertips. Anderson attacked on reflex, and she dodged the blades, ducking under to stand almost nose to nose with him. Or as close as her nose could get, considering the height difference. He reversed the stab, plunging both blades into her back. She was so close that they went all the way through and sank into his own stomach. Anaid wrapped her arms around him almost affectionately and slammed all ten talons into his back. They sank between his ribs and he gasped a spray of blood as his lungs were punctured. She ripped both handfuls outward, splashing an arc of blood out from either side like red wings.

Anderson staggered back a step, letting go of his bayonets. Anaid took a step back too. She winced and had to contort a bit to reach the hilts sticking out of her back. Her arms weren't long enough to pull them out of herself, which made her grumble. Half a pace away, Anderson was getting back to his feet. He was covered in his own blood, but didn't seem to be in any pain.

"All monsters flee the holy wrath of God. They stand no chance against it." It took Anaid a moment to realize he was answering the question she had asked him before. She let go of the hilts and locked eyes with him again.

"Well I'm not fleeing. So you're either not so holy or I'm not so monstrous." She wasn't looking smug anymore, but her lack of horror at his ability to hurt her was beginning to bother him. She was supposed to be howling with pain or summoning black arts to battle him. He had fought freakish shapeshifters before, but all of them had actually fought and shapeshifted. This one had grown claws, but was now looking at the tips of his blessed blades sticking out of her chest with what looked like mild annoyance. To make matters worse, it was his own blood all over them, and not hers. The paladin came up with a whole new handful of blades.

"Take your true form and fight me," he growled.

"This IS my true form," she said. "Take your own! Humans aren't supposed to get that tall."

"I will kill you," he said. "In the name of -"Quick as a cat, Anaid slashed upward. Her claws ripped Anderson's right eye from its socket. He staggered and Anaid watched with interest as a new eyeball regenerated in the bleeding hole and rolled to aim at her. Somewhere in the distance, Anderson's glasses landed in the underbrush. A psychotic grin opened his face as his new eye refocused.

"A self-healer!" Anaid arched an eyebrow. "With a scar? It means you weren't born one. Unless it's a Mark of Devotion. Is it?"

Anderson faltered at that. He almost raised a hand to touch the scar before he caught himself. He was now just glaring at her. Then, a shout came from the woods behind them.

"Paladin Anderson! The relic is gone!"


	7. Chapter 7

I shouldn't have left her! God only knows what he'll do to her! Seras was mentally berating herself for leaving Anaid behind. By the time Alucard gets here, she could be killed! But then again, if 300 years of being impaled on silvered spears hadn't killed her, even Anderson probably couldn't do it just one night... But still! I should've ordered her to come with me! And... if... if that didn't work, I could've just grabbed her! It's a new moon, and I had plenty of blood today. I could've picked her up and carried her off! The worst she could've done is bitten me, and she's earned that...

Seras ran like a deer, springing over logs and rocks, heading back toward Hellsing as a crow flies. The lack of moonlight cast her vision into a black on black landscape. She could see perfectly, but the utter darkness of the woods didn't escape her. She couldn't help but expect Anderson to suddenly step out in front of her.

"It's acres and acres of forest!" she told herself. "Surely he can't ward the whole woods!" That last was was whispered hopefully as frantic red eyes scanned the trees and imagined the pages pinned there, trapping her. By then, Seras was moving inhumanely fast, and one tree was punched so hard it split in two and was thrown aside when it got in her way. Couldn't you just do that to him? an inner thought asked.

It won't work, Seras wailed mentally. He's a regenerator!

And you're a vampire. You could become a black mist. He could stab it until he finally did run out of blades without hurting you. You could engulf him, let him breath you, and you could drain his blood from the inside. He could stab himself to try to kill you and only bleed black. Bleed and bleed beyond any hope of regeneration.

That thought was so unlike any of her own that Seras stopped and looked around.

"Master?" she asked almost hopefully. "Is that you?"

You're running. Running from something that isn't even as human as you try to be. RUNNING. On human feet. When you could have wings. When you could fly.

"You know I can't do that!" Seras screamed outloud, just because it felt good. "Not... not yet..." She realized what she had just said and her hands clenched to fists. She started running again. Frustration drove out some of the fear.

Maybe I should've tried to fight him, she thought a little angrily. Anaid was there. Between the two of us, we might've had a chance... I shouldn't have left her! She wouldn't have left me! Seras almost slowed down to go back. Anderson wouldn't expect her to come springing out at him after he thought she had run, would he? It might work. But then, her boots smacked down on pavement and she skidded to a stop. It was a road. She was back in partial civilization again. There were no buildings in sight, but the glow of streetlights was visible over the next rise of trees. She listened and could hear cars in the distance, faint voices, the hum of humanity. It was closer to Hellsing than it was back to Anaid, so Seras got a fresh grip on herself and ran on.

There wasn't anymore inner conversation, and she was much faster than she realized. It seemed only a minute or two before the woods and fields blurred into streets and buildings. She was able to spring over the wall around the Hellsing mansion without going through security. She scared two sentries half to death in the process, but they recognized her before it was fatal and let her go unchallenged. She tore through the nearest door and went sprinting through the halls. She knew where her Master was and went straight to the room, throwing open the door.

It was Integra's office, which Seras hadn't realized until she saw the woman sitting behind the desk. Walter was there too, with a laptop computer that he was showing to Integra. Alucard was lounging on an endtable.

"I lost track of you after your little outburst," he said, smirking. "It's rare to have your mind so focused."

"Anaid's in trouble," Seras said, glaring at him. "Section XIII is at the old abbey west of here."

"And what were YOU doing out there?" The question came from Alucard, but Seras turned to Integra to answer it.

"We were just passing through! He attacked us, and ruined the car. Anaid went to hold him off until I could get back to report it."

"Werewolves are as bloodthirsty as vampires," Integra said, lighting a new cigar. Her cold eyes flickered over Seras. "Most of them, anyway. Why WERE you in the old abbey woods?"

"The werewolf that came here today had the same Mark as Anaid did," Seras tried to explain. "It... upset her, she was acting strangely, so I took her out to get her away from the men." It wasn't much of an excuse, and everyone in the room knew it.

"The curious thing is why Section XIII is on the move the same day Hellsing is attacked," Alucard said. Integra turned to Walter.

"It seems that four religious relics have disappeared from their various hiding places." Walter said, tapping a gloved finger against his chin, the computer screen in front of him reflecting off the monocle. "The Vatican's British agents have been scrambling from one cache to another."

"Why would Section XIII be removing relics now?" Integra wondered aloud. Walter started to answer, but was interrupted.

"Are you so certain that they are the ones removing them?" Alucard asked. He spread his arms out playfully. "Perhaps they're trying to catch up to the thieves themselves."

"Are these things connected?" Integra was thinking outloud again. It still sounded imperious.

"They don't seem to be," Walter said. "The Vatican wouldn't knowingly employ a werewolf when they have regenerators at their disposal. And they have no reason to attack us now unless there's a Catholic relic I don't know about on the premises." He raised an eyebrow at Alucard, who folded his gloved hands demurely and smiled like a pirahna. Integra finally glared directly at him.

"What do you know about this, Alucard?"

"Only that the moonchild doesn't have permission to fight Section XIII." The vampire drew up to his full height, fading to shadow, except for his eyes.

"Perhaps she'll have more success than you have." Integra's voice could've cut diamonds.

"We shall see..." Alucard chuckled. He turned to go, but that same tone stopped him cold.

"Not yet, we won't." Integra crossed her arms over her chest. "YOU haven't been given permission to go fight Anderson either."

Alucard looked over his shoulder at her. Master and Monster settled into a sizzling staredown. Seras almost asked 'But what about Anaid?' With both her masters trying to set each other on fire by stare alone, it would've been a waste of breath. Her shoulders slumped. Walter noticed and pulled his up into a wry shrug. Seras sighed and snuck away before she could be ordered not to interfere. After a few moments with no word or change from the knight and her vampire, Walter shut down the laptop and left, too. The contest of wills went on behind him.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"What has Hellsing done with the holy relic? It's of no value to heathens unless you were only hoping to keep it from us."

Staring down several more bayonets and a few gun barrels, Anaid blinked at the Iscariot agents.

"I haven't done anything with anything!" she said. "You were the one breaking into the place. Didn't you look at it first? You shouldn't have gone to the trouble if someone else had already broken in!"

One of the agents hesitated.

"None of the seals were broken," he admitted. "Nothing had been touched." Anderson spared him an icy glare, then turned it back on Anaid.

"This is the fifth relic to have been found missing-" he began.

"How was it found if it was missing?" Anaid narrowed one eye at him, interrupting just to watch the vein in his temple swell.

"Do you HONESTLY expect us to believe that two of Hellsing pet freaks just HAPPENED to be here when that was discovered?" another agent, this one a woman, snapped.

"The seals weren't broken," Anaid reminded them, smiling. "Are you certain this is where you left it?"

Anderson snapped and charged, impaling her enough force to lift her off her feet and pin her to a tree. Anaid didn't even try to dodge and the truth was that she might not have had time. With all her weight hanging by two blades under her collarbones, a real grimace twisted her face. She didn't like being off the ground. It reminded her of the spears and that made her growl. Anderson pressed in close, his nose and forehead touching hers. He grabbed her by the neck to throttle out any chance of another Song. A gulp throbbed under his grip, but her eyes locked on his as fierce and bright as ever.

"Ready to flee yet?" he asked her softly.

"Are you?" she whispered back, then slammed one knee up into his ribcage with force that crumpled the bones. It lifted him up off his own feet, and Anaid took that instant to plant her feet against the tree trunk and push off it. She ripped free, taking the blades with her, and tackled Anderson before he even hit the ground again. Any ribs that weren't in pieces crunched as he was slammed back to the ground. The other agents opened fire. One of the bullets was silver and it smacked into Anaid's back with a hot splatter that ignited as soon as it contacted her blood. Fire splashed on Anderson's chest in the fraction of time it took before the exiting bullet slammed into him. It made an almost comical 'sphut' noise.

He saw Anaid arched in real pain over him and then her claws sank into his shoulders. She grabbed him and spun to use him as a shield as the rest of the bullets rained down. One of the agents screamed for the others to stop as they saw the Paladin jerking from the dozens of impacts. Anaid didn't wait. She sprang into the darkness, dragging Anderson with her. She was inhumanely fast of course, and in the few seconds it took for Anderson to regenerate, the other agents had been left behind. He twisted in her grasp and punched her hard on the jaw. He was almost surprised to see it knock her down, but she went sprawling into the leaves and picked herself up slowly.

She was finally bleeding. The silver bullet had left a wet, shiny hole in the already tattered shirt. Anaid pulled the two blades out and glared at him. He was on his feet too. He took a step toward her and something crunched under his foot. They both looked down in surprise. Anderson lifted his shoe and saw his own glasses, blood spattered and now very broken. He muttered something that sounded unpriestly.

"You don't even need them do you?" Anaid asked. "Why even bother? Whatever was done to you to make you this way fixed your eyes too, didn't it? Why still wear them? To remember that once upon a time you were human?"

"Shut up." Anderson hissed.

"You don't make any sense," Anaid let a plaintive note creep into her voice. She pressed a hand on the bullet wound with a pained sound. "You attack without reason, you accuse without reason, you wear those without reason.

"You gave up your humanity," Anderson snapped. He looked at her and then at the bayonets laying on the ground. There was a burning where the silver bullet had hit him. Proof that Iscariot's bullets were to be reckoned with. "Or had it taken from you. You wouldn't understand what it even means to be human anymore."

"I was never human." Anaid let herself snarl. "I was born a werewolf, as were both my parents and their's before them. I give up nothing and I allow nothing to be taken."

That hadn't occurred to the Paladin. He stooped to pick up the broken glasses and waited for her to spring at him, but she didn't. He put them in a pocket and stood up.

"Werewolves are bitten," he said. "Just like vampires. Poor creature. Were you really cursed so young you can't remember being human? Did your own parents bite you?" His tone was almost sympathetic, but another step took him to the first of the two bayonets.

"You won't believe me." Anaid said. "You're only hearing what you want to."

"What have you done with the Relic of Ma'tan?" he asked again.

"What IS this thing anyway?" Anaid watched him walk over to the other bayonet. She wished she could shift, just to be able to stop thinking for awhile.

"A sacred vessel that held the heart of a martyr." He said it grudgingly.

"What's it do?"

He glared again and she returned it.

"Well? Does it purify water? Cure the sick? What is it for?" He hefted the bayonets and studied them a moment, deciding whether or not to waste his breath on the creature.

"It beats," Anderson finally said. "It flows with blood though it was cut from a martyr in the 1500s."

"That IS useful," Anaid said nastily. "And when was the last time anyone saw this thing?"

"The 1600s," he said finally. "It was brought to abbey in the Year of the Yellow Oak, they say. A box. Oak on the outside, gold on the inside. Three locks, shaped like crosses."

Anaid's scorn melted away instantly. She went perfectly blank for a thoughtful moment. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, and went blank again. Anderson watched concern, disbelief, sheepishness, and irritation dance through her expression as her mind hummed away behind her feral eyes. Finally, she squenched her whole face up and ground the heel of her hand into her forehead.

"I don't believe it," she moaned. "Ohhhh nooooo..."

"What?" Anderson was honestly baffled now. She squinted at him and sighed.

"It WAS me that stole the thing."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"The frost was early enough that the leaves turned yellow long before they fell," Anaid said. She was sitting on a rock now. The bullet hole was still bothering her. The one in Anderson's chest still hurt too, but he hardly gave it a thought. "The abbey hadn't been finished, but they had the wall up and some of the smaller outbuildings. Bastion decided that the monks hadn't been taxed and sent some of us out to collect."

Anderson wondered who Bastion was but didn't ask fast enough before she started talking again.

"There was a cart being driven through these woods. The old road is probably long gone. It was me and Yena and Noll. Yena only knew one Song, but she could sing it better than anyone. The Song of the Blind. She could hum it to herself and be completely invisible. I was never that good at it. She vanished herself and ran alongside the cart horses. Scared them out of their heads. They couldn't see her but they knew she was there. Horses have more sense than men sometimes. While the monks tried to get them to keeps going, they reared up and got all tangled in their harness. All I had to do was walk to the back of the cart, reach in, and grab the box.

"Bastion had told me what to look for and I saw it there. There was gold and food and good stuff, but orders were to get the box and nothing else. So I did. Noll was the oldest. He just came along to babysit in case they had crossbows or something. He wouldn've killed them for that. He hated crossbows. But Yena did her job and I did mine and we carried that box home. Bastion made sure it was what he wanted and let us have some sheep to eat. "

"Who was Bastion?" Anderson asked when she paused again to peer into the wound through her body.

"You don't want to know."

"If he commands werewolves to steal from the Holy Catholic Church-"

"See? You're already mad and I haven't even told you." Anaid got up and walked over to to some low-growing shrubs. Anderson bit his lip to rein in his temper. She went poking through the little plants there, maybe looking for grubs to eat, he thought grumpily.

"Was Bastion a man?" he asked, knowing that he couldn't be, if the creature was ashamed to tell him.

"No," she said. She plucked up a small plant and sniffed it, then tossed it away. "He conquered the Clans before I was born. He was a vampire. We obeyed him because we had to."

"He had you in thrall." Some disgust crept into his voice. Anaid rolled her eyes, but he didn't see it. She found a smaller plant with wide, shiny leaves and stuffed it in her mouth before looking for more.

"He killed the high alpha and took his place. He cut Devotion into our skins and we obeyed." Anderson started to ask why, but she knew it was coming and answered first. "Because we're pack animals. We need a leader. We need a pack. We would've obeyed YOU if you had beaten us. What would you do without your masters? If there was no church to be obeyed? You wouldn't like it much, I'm sure." She now had a mouthful of chewed leaves and was smacking noisily on it.

"The Church has never fallen," he answered, a little stiffly. "And never will. What did your undead master want with the relic?" Anaid spit the chewed mouthful into her palm and slapped it onto the bullet wound. She smeared it over the hole and then squirmed her arm behind her back to get the entry wound as well.

"I never asked," she said, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. "You said it bleeds? Hm. What would a vampire want with something that bleeds forever?" She raised a sarcastic eyebrow and Anderson's came crashing down.

"How dare you?" His voice rose in outrage at the very thought. "Even. SUGGEST-"

"What else would he want it for?" Anaid yowled back. "He was a vampire! They are monsters, remember? They do monstrous things." Anderson choked on his next sentence. He had bitten his tongue hard enough to leave a copper taste in his mouth. He could hear his heartbeat loud in his ears and throbbing in the bullet wound. He rubbed the ache through his shirt.

"Werewolves are monsters, too," he said. She sniffed haughtily at that. It was a strange sound coming from someone as tattered and battered as she was. She was covered in stab wounds and blood, her clothing was in shreds from blades and bullets, her hair was full of blood and leaves, and now there was a poultice of chewed salad stuck on her chest.

"So are slasher killers." she said. "Humans are terrified of their own kind. Especially crazy ones with edged weapons." She looked hard at him and he pointed a bayonet at her in a 'be careful' gesture. She wasn't intimidated. "Nothing can kill a human worse than another human." she went on. "It's EXPECTED of a monster, but it's a terrible thing to be betrayed by your own. No pain compares to betrayal."

She went silent after that and they sat in the dark quietly for a moment. Anderson was watching the werewolf carefully. Some of the steam had definitely gone out of her. She was sitting on her rock again, hunched over to keep the poultice from dripping. If he were to attack suddenly, he could take off her head, he mused. Her pale eyes re-focused on him as if she had heard the thought. They were the brightest things in the dark woods and he didn't like looking into them.

"Who betrayed you?" he asked, willing his grip on the hilts to relax for a moment. The whiteness didn't fade from his knuckles.

"I thought he was dead," she sighed. "Why else would he have left us?" She was quiet for a moment, then heaved a deeper sigh that must've hurt the bullet wound, because she cupped her hand over it.

"I don't know where your heart-in-a-box is, but I know where I took it." she said, dropping her eyes in what Seras' book would've called token submission. She got to her feet again and peered up through the tree branches where the moon wasn't. "Think you can keep up?"

"Why are you suddenly being helpful?"

"Don't you want it? Isn't that what this has all been for?"

"All been to lay a trap for us? Why would one of Hellsing's monsters be helpful?"

"To pass the time," her eyes went icy an instant before her voice did. "If I'm not playing with you, then I'll have no choice but to hunt those idiots I left behind. I'm betting they won't be as much fun as you are, though. I'm betting their bones STAY broken." The change in her overall demeanor was so sudden that even the Paladin was taken aback. The blood and mess looked appropriate now. Anaid had bared her teeth and was glaring cold daggers. The playful chattiness had dissolved into a much more predatory expression. On the other hand, killing monsters was what he did. It would only be easier if she acted like one. Before he could act, she melted back into the darkness and was gone. Left alone in a clearing, Anderson heard a rustle and charged after it. He was the only regenerator on the team and he wasn't sure the other agents could take on a werewolf that seemed impervious to most things. He wondered how much more silver was left among them.

And now that she's expecting it she'll be dodging the bullets, he thought, gritting his teeth. She's not playing now. Now that she's angry. He heard another movement in the underbrush and turned to chase it. He listened to that last thought go through his head and it sounded strange. She hadn't been angry before, not over being stabbed or shot. Not until he'd questioned her motives. The creature was clearly insane, but it seemed out of place anyway. He didn't dare let her find the other Iscariot agents before he could be there to protect them, though, so he ran on. Led by rustling, the occasional flash of motion, and the smell of blood, he kept following.

His only comfort was that she didn't seem to be heading back toward the other agents at all. If anything, they were heading in the opposite direction. It occurred to him that he was being had. Maybe she really was leading him somewhere. He hadn't gone willingly when she offered, so now she had tricked him into following her. Still, he couldn't take the chance that she wouldn't doubleback and take out an agent. He had to keep chasing her.

It was almost like a bad dream to run through the dark woods. Only in this one, the monster was ahead of him. His senses were keener than most, so he wasn't entirely blind. Still, every now and then, a branch would whip him in the face. It was hard to be careful of his footing at the speed he was going. He had to rely on reflexes and instinct and even then she managed to stay ahead of him. Once he had to stop and he thought he might've lost her, but the faint sound of panting caught his ear. She was getting tired, he hoped, sprinting after. He caught a glimpse of her ducking behind some rocks and he went up the rock side to spring after her from there.

There was only a hole on the other side though, so he slid to an arm-flailing stop to keep from falling in. What he had taken for a cluster of rocks was part of a wall. The roof was long gone, but closer inspection showed him stairs leading down into the hole. This was a ruin of some old building. After a moment's thought, he tucked the bayonets under his arms and jumped down into the darkness. He landed on stone and hurried down the few stairs into pitch blackness.

"This is where I brought it," Anaid's voice came from behind him and he spun around. She was standing at the top of the stairs, a silhouette against the stars. "I haven't seen it again since. As to where Bastion took it, you'll have to ask him."

Then there was a distant scream and the crackle of faraway gunfire. Anaid turned, startled, as a howl rose above the noise. Anderson was up the stairs in a blur of speed and tackled her flat, driving a blade straight into the bullet wound. She actually cried out at that and he drove the blade to the hilt, pinning her to the ground. He felt the blade snap, but didn't care. His weight went to his knees on her arms and the second bayonet sank a fraction into her chest over her heart.

"What else is out here?" he bellowed. "You brought me here so they could be killed! What did you lead to my men?"

"Didn't!" she screamed through a mouthful of blood. Her wide eyes were the color of liquid mercury and he could see himself reflected on the strange, double lens. The sight of it startled him. He looked almost... depraved in the funhouse image, but then she squeezed them shut and the image was gone. In the distance, silence had fallen again. The Paladin looked in that direction and then down at Anaid.

"They're dead, aren't they." It wasn't a question, but Anderson wasn't shouting anymore.

"Mybe." Her voice was tight with pain. He heard something click in her jaw and she grimaced.

"Hellsing will pay for this."

Anaid's eyes opened again. Her lips pulled upward into a grin that parted for a wet, breathless chuckle.

"Y've no idea," she wheezed. "Thr's oly one way t'mke y'see." She coughed hard and her voice became clearer. "When the moon is full again, you might understand better." Her smile twisted like she was trying to work something out of her back teeth.

"Pagan beast," Anderson said, almost gently. He had wasted enough time on her. "You aren't going to see another full moon." His arm tensed to stab through her heart.

She lunged forward, impaling herself on it. Her mouth fell open and her incisors unsheathed. Anderson didn't have time to even flinch before she sank her teeth into his shoulder. The unexpected pain tore a gasp out of him. Anaid scissored her jaws, burying the fangs deeper into him. Heat spread from the bite like venom. Anderson growled and slammed his fist into her. Her blood sprayed and it forced a grunt out through her nose. Her teeth didn't budge. The venom-like sensation was spreading up his neck and down his arm. It began to occur to him that he was being bitten by a werewolf. There was a word for that. Cursed.

Panic touched him and he grappled with her, trying to pull her off. He jerked back to his feet, pulling the blade free and taking her with him. She hung on like a pit bull. He was strong enough to pull her apart like a wishbone, she thought hazily, but they would have to cut this mouthful out of him to her jaws free. His fists pounded against her skull and she could hear her arms dislocating as he yanked on them. Her line of vision was such that she could only see part of his face. She felt a rush of satisfaction to see fear there.

A flick of light caught her eye, like the flash of a minnow in the water. Anderson's throat tightened like he was choking. There was another thin gleam of silver and then the wire that was almost too fine to see cut neatly through the priest's neck. His eyes bugged, even as his severed head toppled forward. Skulls with all the stuff in them are surprisingly heavy, and it bounced off the bridge of Anaid's nose hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. She lost her grip on his shoulder with a wince and fell to the ground. The tall body swayed over her, but stayed on its feet until it was yanked aside by Seras.

The vampire made a sound somewhere between rage and horror at the sight of Anaid's injuries. She grabbed the werewolf by her upper arms and picked her up.

"I can walk," Anaid said, without much conviction.

"If I had done this before you wouldn't be hurt at all," Seras turned and ran back the way she had come with Anaid still in her arms. Anaid was lighter than the Halconnen, but had to be held carefully to keep from driving the blades in further. "You just had to fight him, didn't you? You're as crazy as Master."

Walter was there also. He managed to be ahead of them in time to hold the door of a van open for both females and got in to tend to Anaid while Seras went to drive.

"We would've been here sooner, but we had difficulty finding you," he said, opening a rather occult looking first aid kit. "You've covered quite a bit of ground tonight."

"We heard gunshots too, but we knew Anderson wouldn't have used those," Seras called over her shoulder. "You... you look awful... Will she be all right, Walter?"

"It will take awhile just to count all the stab wounds," he said with a sigh. "Hopefully we won't have to fight Anderson again. Regenerating a head should keep him busy for awhile."

"He'll have other things on his mind too," Anaid said. She almost managed another chuckle. "One way or the other, when the moon is full, he'll come looking for me again."


	10. Chapter 10

Anderson woke up to birdsong and the whine of flies. He opened his eyes and let them refocus and his memories fall back into place. He was blinking up into bright sunlight filtering through holes in the ceiling. He remembered that there had been running in the woods and something lost. He wasn't even sure what had happened. There was a terrible, metallic taste in his mouth and whatever he was laying on was digging into his back. His skin felt stiff. When he raised his head to look around, he saw his hands and found them caked with dried blood. He was covered in it. He had also attracted a small swarm of flies. It couldn't be all mine, he told himself. I heal too quickly to bleed this much.

He sat up carefully and felt something shift underneath him. He rolled carefully to the side and found himself on top of a pile of bodies. They had once been Iscariot agents. They had been torn wide open and some of them were missing large pieces. Anderson sat and looked at them a moment. He must've known it already, he decided, because he felt no shock at all. There was only the anger that whatever had killed them had dragged him on top of their bodies while he was regenerating. It was an outrage to him that he had been that close and hadn't been able to kill their killer.

There was so much dried blood in his nose that he couldn't smell the pile, which was just as well. A few of the shafts of sunlight made it through the rubble and brush overhead to spotlight little scenes in the carnage. A butterfly was sitting on the almost-open lips of the body directly under Anderson. The black and blue wings fanned the dead face gently. In another beam, a wrist that was only attached to the arm by a few shreds of flesh was still clutching a gun. In another, a cross lay in a puddle of blood with another butterfly on it. It almost looked staged.

First things first, he told himself, taking a deep breath and coughing on a clump of something in his throat. There was a blood trail nearly five feet wide, leading out of the little room, up some stairs that he was beginning to remember. He looked himself over. His shirt and coat collar were soaked with blood. The spray looked like it was going outwards, so that much could've been his. The only way he would've bled like that is if his whole head was taken off, he thought. That would also explain why he couldn't remember it very well.

There was a particularly nasty tear in the left shoulder of his coat. He worked a finger into the hole, only to hiss in pain when it touched the wound. Whatever had happened still hurt. How long had it been since that had happened? Moving more gingerly than he would've liked anyone to see, he peeled the fabric back and found a bite mark. It was healing, but so slowly that it was still sore. How was that possible? He gave one one of the punctures another poke and then he remembered teeth. Teeth and claws. Not a vampire, something else. He had fought it. It had been a her. A female thing, small, but quick. It hadn't told him its name, but it had had pale, reflective eyes. Like a blind cavefish. Like moons that blinked.

There was something else about the moon that stirred his memory. It hadn't been a vampire, but a werewolf. Or at least a creature that called itself a werewolf. It hadn't shapeshifted and had seemed charmed to be called a 'beastie'. The blades hadn't stopped it. He arched to look over his shoulder and there were matching slashes through his coat over his back. He found a memory of that one, twin stabs into his back, a hot gush into his lungs, followed by a cold splash of night air as they were ripped open. He remembered having her in his grasp and feeling her bones breaking.

How had she managed to take his head off with her teeth and claws held elsewhere? That made him remember the teeth and he looked over at his shoulder again. He had been bitten. Bitten. By a werewolf. She had said something about the next full moon... Had she meant? No. That was impossible. He couldn't be altered that way. His metabolism would tear through werewolf taint like any other poison. He had been poisoned plenty of times. The worst had only burned for a little while. Like that bullet. Why had that bullet hurt so much? It was just silver. It had burned the werewolf, but not him.

Of course not me! he thought angrily. Not even blessed silver hurts me and why would it? That was before she bit me anyway. But it made him wonder what had been so different about that bullet. Then it occurred to him. It had come through the werewolf's body. Her blood had burned and the wound had burned. He couldn't feel it anymore, which was some comfort.

He looked around again to get his bearings. There was the buzz of more flies. It was no worse than a hundred other vampires dens he had barged into, so he ran a sticky hand through his matted hair and got to his feet. A limb rolled underfoot and he staggered, but managed to get clear of the mess. He made sure he was steady and stepped away. He forcibly kept from rubbing at the bite. He turned back to the pile.

All around, insects flew. The flies and other bugs were enjoying themselves over the mess as well. The combined sound of their wings rose and fell as they moved from one damp spot to another. Anderson sucked in a deep breath and released it in a sigh. There was nothing else to be done but to pray for their souls and have their bodies shipped home for a decent burial. He was drawing another breath to start the prayer when he was suddenly hit by something with enough force to bounce his large frame off the floor

"I am the last of the faithful," someone said. Whoever it was seized his skull and held it to the ground. "The one most loyal." A weight that felt like a mountain landed squarely on his back. "The one most strong. Why does a holyman trespass here?" Anderson managed a furious sound before he heard a loud and obvious sniff.

"She must like you," rumbled the strange voice. The tone was caressing enough to lull, but there was malice in it too, like a curved claw retracted into the velvet of a lynx's paw. "Her scent's all over you."

Anderson struggled and found to his shock that he couldn't move. He squirmed his head to look back over his shoulder and saw a new pair of glowing eyes. Where the female's had been silver, these were golden-yellow, like polished amber held to flame. They had the weird, double lens that he remembered from the female's eyes, but the face was too backlit for him to see. When the speaker smiled, a sliver of white fangs appeared in the shadowed face.

"I thought you were dead," it went on. "And that she would come back for you. But you seem healthy enough. I haven't seen a self-healer since... oh, it's been a long time."

The idle, conversational tone was exactly like the other one's had been. This had to be another werewolf then. Silver had hurt that one, but the only silver he had at the moment was his cross, which was pinned underneath him. It was digging rather painfully into his sternum.

"Unclean beast," Anderson said. His voice sounded raspy. "I won't leave enough of you for the crows to find!"

"Oh hush," the creature said. It dragged the tip of a sharp, brown fingernail over the bite and the twinge of pain was fainter this time. "You couldn't kill her, and you haven't a prayer against me. But I'll tell you a secret." It leaned so close Anderson could feel its breath fill his ear and trickle down his neck. He shuddered in spite of himself. There was a tangible unwholesomeness to the creature.

"A werewolf's bite isn't like a vampire's," it whispered. "It takes more than one to finish the job. You've only just begun."

Anderson growled and threw an elbow backwards with all his strength. He felt it connect with a ribcage that didn't break and the weight on his back was forced back enough for him to turn. The air was suddenly rustling with pages. They flew everywhere, pinning themselves to the crumbling walls and circling Anderson like a small tornado. He was back on his feet in another heartbeat and the creature had backed off a step. It was between the paladin and the door and in the weak light, its shadow was huge and shaggy. Anderson let the rage pour through him and become a savage, righteous glee. Two blades slid from his sleeves into his hands as if summoned by the emotion.

"You killed those under my protection." he told the creature. It was studying the paper wards with a new degree of caution, but the words brought its gleaming eyes back to Anderson.

"You," it said as it began to fade out of sight. "Should've protected them better." Anderson choked on that for only as long as it took to fling the bayonets into the disappearing werewolf. One sank into the creature, but the other passed completely through its fast-fading body and then the werewolf was gone. It took the one blade with it, and left the other embedded in the far wall. It wasn't invisible. It was simply gone.

Somewhere in the pile, in a pocket on one of the mauled bodies, a cell phone began to ring.


	11. Chapter 11

Anaid didn't wake up again until there was enough moon to cut a thin smile into the dark. When her eyes opened, Alucard was looming over her. She had smelled him before she saw him, so the black and red apparition didn't startle her. She blinked, and he straightened up to look down on her from his full height. 

"He came closer to destroying you than he ever did me," the vampire said. Anaid sucked on one of her incisors, but didn't speak. "Why," he went on. "Are you so pleased with yourself?"

"I came closer to scaring him than you did," she said. His red glasses slid down his nose so that his eyes could bore into hers. She demured, but not much. "It's easier to be afraid of what you don't know. He knows vampires, but I don't think he even believed me when I told him what I was. Humans have almost forgotten what it is to be hunted. Your kind has been kept a careful secret and mine has disappeared."

"Except for one." A gloved finger was held up to her face to illustrate the point.

"Selkah," she agreed, looking past it at him.

"So, it's possible that more of you could be bred." There was a definite leer in the vampire's voice.

"It's possible." If he had hoped to embarrass her, it was a dismal failure. "But there's something wrong with him. He doesn't smell right. I'm not sure his cubs would be worth having."

The frank answer took the fun out of teasing her. Alucard rocked back on his heels.

"It doesn't explain the satisfaction you've been radiating. What have you done?"

She widened her eyes in mock innocence.

"I, Lord?"

"You, Guardian."

"I've done rather well, I think. I've managed to guard the Lady against Rawhead, Seras from Selkah AND the paladin... the only one I haven't had to protect is you... Is that what's bothering you?" He made a scoffing sound. "The Mark of Devotion binds me to be a daytime guardian to a vampire lord," she reminded him. "You aren't like the usual lord, though. It pointless to guard an empty room while you're traipsing about in the daylight. I could serve you better if you acted like a real lord. In the meantime, I have to do SOMEthing to pass the time."

"Oh yes," he leaned on the wall. "We know a little something about passing the time, don't we?"

"I wasn't awake for my captivity," she said with a sigh. "It's just a memory of a darkness that hurt." She sat up and stretched. There was a tightness in her chest from the silver bullet, and there would be until the moon changed, but it didn't hurt and the other wounds were gone.

"A hunger." Alucard added, thinking back to his own prison.

"Always."

Their eyes met for half a second. Anaid ducked her head to hide a smile.

"You're still doing it." He was suddenly right in front of her. "What are you up to?" She made a show of cowering, but the smirk stayed on. His vampiric power of reading minds and intents wasn't much good against a werewolf's thought patterns. She didn't resist and that didn't help. Her thoughts flowed around his like water and oil. She was aware of him taking a mental peek and propped her chin up on her hands to wait it out.

"Seras told me you shot her," she said, watching his outline blur into black tendrils before fading back to a red coat. "You shot her and changed her and now she's yours."

"Meaning?"

"If there's no worthy mates to sire me cubs, and I'm not saying there isn't..." She grinned openly, a flash of teeth in her pale face, then sobered. "I'll have no choice but to make myself a partner the same way you did."

"Integra won't approve of that." He sounded amused, but he leaned back and crossed his arms. Anaid snorted,

"Your master is not a child," she said. "The daughter of a noble family should understand that a bloodline is only as secure as the next heir. If she wants to be the last, that's her business, but duty to a family isn't just honor. Even queens have succession as a priority." Alucard's grin had reappeared. Anaid had lived in a wolf pack and been part of a royal court and had found little difference between them.

"It's a subject she isn't fond of," he purred. Anaid looked sideways at him.

"But you have discussed it...?"

He just smirked.

"I've heard that humans can breed with vampires," she raised an eyebrow at him. "In a wolf pack, only the alpha male and female bear cubs. You are the alpha, aren't you?"

She knew immediately that she had gone too far with that one from the way he went still. She didn't sense any violence besides his usual bloodlust, so she went on, more playfully.

"What? It's nothing to be ashamed of. Werewolves have taken human mates before. You'd be surprised how many great men had some wolf in them. I looked at that history book Walter has. Seras told me who the pictures were. Lots of them had the moon in their blood. I could tell. It shows in the eyes."

"You like Walter, don't you." It wasn't really a question.

"Of course. Don't you?" Again, it was hard to tease someone who was being honest. He almost glowered at her before it struck him as funny.

"What would his cubs be worth?"

"He has a definite smell of worthiness about him," Anaid managed to sound almost prim, then ruined it with a grin. "He smells good."

"I'm going to tell him you said that."

"I've already told him that."

"And what did he say?"

"He said I was just smelling the sausage he made me for breakfast, but he thanked me anyway."

"Worthiness smells like sausage?"

"No. It would play havoc with the hormones if it did."

Alucard chuckled, but it was interrupted by a call from Integra. He tilted his head to listen.

"Company's coming," he said after a moment, his grin spreading from ear to ear. "Make yourself presentable."


	12. Chapter 12

(Quick note: The arms dealer mentioned in this chapter was in the Vol. 2 chapter of Crossfire. I don't anything about him except the tidbits I picked up from the comic. I had to make the rest up.)

Chapter 12

Ilyushin Ridgeway didn't look nervous, but he was. He had worked with Section XIII before, but this was a bit strange even by his standards. He had felt a misgiving as soon as he had been approached. This wasn't going to end well. He also still had bruises under his collar where an enraged and hysterical priest had grabbed him by the neck and shaken him until his glasses fell off. Now he was here, being stared down by a cold-eyed woman who was young enough to be his daughter. His instincts were buzzing a dozen warning signals at him. There was something off about all of this. He didn't like it, and he didn't intend to die for the Vatican . That's what the Section XIII itself was for.

"I've been authorized to offer the Hellsing Organization a deal," he said, a trace of Russian accent in his voice. "A trade, if you will." It had been a long time since he had really had an accent, but he cultivated it for the affect. Women seemed to warm to it, and there was something about it that made buyers feel like they were getting their money's worth. The Hellsing Head didn't appear to be impressed.

"That's quite an if," she said, raising an eyebrow. The chill wasn't just in her eyes. Her voice lowered the room temperature by several degrees. Ridgeway was tempted to look over at the butler standing by for help, but he didn't want to reveal weakness this early in the game. He pushed his glasses a little farther up his nose and tried to smile. This wasn't even his game, he admitted to himself. This was a last minute arrangement. He wouldn't have taken this one at all if the check hadn't cleared, if only to spite the crazy priest who had nearly throttled him. I couldn't even understand what the maniac was saying, he thought, between the accent and the froth. He brought his thoughts back to the present and met the woman's gaze again.

"I'm afraid I am only a messenger, Sir Hellsing," he said. "I have been sent to speak to you in hopes of making an exchange of goods. My employers are willing to offer your army weapons in exchange for an item they believe you to have. OR," he added quickly as she opened her mouth to speak. "Information on where it is."

She closed her mouth and they eyed each other warily over the desk. Ridgeway kept his hands folded even though they itched to rub at the sore place where his tie knot had been crushed into his neck. He contented himself with a hard swallow.

"I must ask you to be more specific, Mr. Ridgeway," she said after another moment. Her eyes moved away from him to something behind him, and he became aware of a new presence in the room.The butler's stance altered a fraction as the man acnowledged the new arrival. The skin on the back of Ridgeway's neck prickled. He hadn't heard a door open or close, or any footsteps, but it didn't matter.

"I am told that there is a Mi-45 helicopter gunship prototype that needs a home," he said. He didn't like being so glib. He would rather have just handed her a list of weaponry and the prices. This was a little more complicated. "It's a gunship and a tactical transport and airlift, newly calibrated and on the market for the very first time."

"In exchange for?"

"A relic," he made a very careful show of reaching into his coat to pull out a letter just in case whoever was behind him would misinterpret the movement. He held it out, the butler took it, and handed it over to her. Ridgeway settled in to watch as the knight opened and read the document. It only took her a moment. She then passed the note to her butler who looked it over, and then handed it on to the mysterious fourth person Ridgeway was determined not to look at.

"I have only become aware of that item in recent days, Mr. Ridgeway," Integra said. She steepled her fingers and looked at him over the tips. "To my knowledge, it isn't here, but there may be a way we can profit from each other."

"Music to my ears, Sir Hellsing," he said, and meant it. But then, she stood up as if the conversation was over.

"I will leave Miss Dummanios at your disposal," she said suddenly. Her eyes looked past him again. "Make yourself useful to our guest." There was a murmered assent, and the Hellsing Head swept out. Ridgeway finally turned his head to see a thin woman standing at his shoulder. The movement reminded him of his sore neck. The woman looked pale, underfed, and prematurely gray. There was a sheen over her eyes and for a moment he thought she might be blind. What have they left me with?? he wondered, but she tilted her head to look at him and the change in light showed that her eyes were just a very pale gray.

"Mr. Ridgeway, was it?" she asked meekly. She had an accent too, but he couldn't place it.

"Yes. Miss Duma-?"

"Call me Anaid," she smiled at him. He didn't recognize that name either, but nodded anyway. "The relic you were talking about is the martyr's heart, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid I don't know, my dear," he said. "I make it a point to know as few details as possible in these situations."

"Hm." She narrowed her eyes at him. "How can I best be of use to you then?"

If she had been healthier and prettier, he might've thought of something. It was too bad they hadn't left the blond he'd seen earlier at his disposal, a distant thought snickered to itself. His other thoughts ignored it. They had business to deal with.

"Mr. Ridgeway isn't looking for anything," a new voice said. This was a smooth male voice that seemed to come out of nowhere. Ridgeway couldn't help but turn at that one. There was an usually tall man in a long red coat leaning casually against a wall. He wore elaborately embroidered white gloves and was holding the letter in one hand. Ridgeway gulped again and this time his hand did go to his throat, though he didn't know why. It was instinct again. "His employers are the ones looking for the martyr's heart. You are the last one to lay hands on it, so it's up to you to track it down again."

"Understood." Anaid's forehead furrowed in thought. "I don't know how long it will take. How soon do your masters want it?" She had turned back to Ridgeway for the last sentence and he blinked rapidly.

"They had hoped I would bring word of it back today," he said. Confusion was making him sound uncertain and he did his best to mask that. He turned the question back on her. "How soon can you get it?"

The man in the red coat was also watching her for an answer. She was examining the back of her own hand and Ridgeway saw what looked like a scar across her palm. She flexed her fingers experimentally and the shape on her skin looked like an eye.

"I'll need to eat," she said. "A lot." She and the man in red traded even looks over Ridgeway's head. "To make the trip. To face Selkah."

"You have my permission," the man said after a moment. There was such a formal sound to the statement that Ridgeway looked back and forth between them. Something fierce lit in the gray eyes and they almost glowed. Ridgeway was quickly reassessing her potential threat. She was still small and puny-looking, but now her vibe had become predatory and warning bells were going off in his head again. She turned back to him and he kept his expression casual.

"Tell your masters I'll meet the agent of their choice at the place I left the heart in a week."

"A week? I'm afraid they're already quite impatient."

"Somethings can't be rushed. I'll need a week to be ready."

"Ready for what?"

"That, Mr. Ridgeway," she said, leaning close enough that he could see himself reflected in her nearest eye. "Would be a detail."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

It was Thursday. There had been nothing on the news but disappearances since the weekend. On Saturday night, a taxi driver's cab had been found on its side on an empty street. The driver was missing. A young bartender never made it home. His bike was also found on the street. A teenaged girl had vanished after sneaking out to go to a party. A night security guard was gone from his post. The security camera showed him responding to a sound and going to check a window. A splatter of blood was found on the outside windowsill, but the guard was gone. A real estate agent had gone to check a property after hours to see if it was ready to be shown. Her keys were still in the door. Her purse had fallen under the front porch stairs. She was gone.

Monday had added three young men to the missing. They were known to local police as troublemakers, and a night bus driver said that they had been hassling a woman at a stop as he pulled up. She had gotten on the bus in tears and one of the men had thrown something at the back window as it had pulled away again. A security camera caught them crossing a parking lot together, but that was the last anyone saw of them. A man on an errand to get craving food for his pregnant wife was seen buying it by store clerks. When they closed up, his car was still there, but he was gone. A woman who liked to meditate by moonlight in the nude disappeared from her rooftop. A doctor taking a smoke break in the park across from the emergency room door never came back.

By Tuesday, there were warnings not to go out after dark, but London was a big, busy city. It had seen carnage before and wasn't impressed with this. That night a woman working a corner was heard screaming by brothers working at the all-night diner down the street. When they looked, she was gone. They called the police, but no sign of her was found. A dancer leaving a bar never made it to her car. A drunk asleep in a stairwell was gone by morning, which was unusual for him. A couple's car was found empty with the front door yanked off. They were never seen again. When a carload of partiers stopped to let a member of their group out to throw up, he never came back. They waited awhile and then sent his girlfriend down the alley. She didn't come back either. The rest shouted their names into the dark until they lost their nerve and left.

There were theories of alien abductions and serial killers. The police were scampering to follow leads and search each site for any clue. The news ran pictures of all the missing. Rewards were offered for information. No bodies were found. No trace at all was found except for the one drip of blood.

Then, an apartment building supervisor went on to the roof to check the gutters. He found a pile of clothing, two outfits down to the shoes and jewelry. He was about to blame the mess on tenant shenanigans on the roof until he noticed how torn and bloodied they were. There was a pair of overlarge black pants, a bright-colored girls top and skirt, one loafer, a heavy black leather belt, a white dress shirt, black hose, a single ruby stud earring, violently orange high-heeled boots, a pair of suspenders, a red tie, a pile of cheap but shiny bracelets, and a very modest bra and panties that seemed in strange contrast to the rest. The bartender's wallet was there, as was the teenager's cell phone. A more thorough search located the other loafer and a large pair of plastic earrings in the alley below. The families of the bartender and girl confirmed it was their relatives' clothing.

Speculation was rampant over whether or not the two had been involved in some way. The bartender's family denied it adamantly. He was a good boy, they said. He was in a devoted relationship and was working nights to pay for art school and would never have hurt anybody, much less a child. The girl's family just cried. She had been 15.

Two miles away, a homeless man found the security guard's uniform under an overpass. All that was missing from it was a sock. All the buttons were popped off and the belt had been slashed. There wasn't very much blood at all, except for on the back of the shirt's collar. The investigator at the time said that it looked like the clothes had been yanked off the guard by force. The dancer's backpack and boots were found in a storm drain with a gun that had been bought by one of the three troublemakers' fathers.

The police caught a homeless woman setting up a shrine in an alley way. She had a dead chicken and a bottle of rum and a bunch of candles she had stolen from a church. She had made a scene, trying to paint the officers with the chicken blood, shouting it would mark them and protect them from the loup garou. They arrested her as quietly as possible, but a news team still got footage of blood-spattered policeman dragging her away from a circle of candles and several makeshift cups of rum, surrounded by symbols drawn in more blood. A blond newscaster was stressing once again that no bodies had been found, so there was no proof that the missing were dead, but she had to agree that it didn't look promising.

Watching the news in her office, Integra tapped a gold pen against one knuckle.

"What do you suppose a loup garou is?" she asked. She might've been talking to herself, but a gleam of light off a single lens appeared to the side and Walter stepped into view.

"I know who we could ask," he said, and there was something in his tone that made her look at him. Then, she blinked.

"What happened to your tie, Walter?"

"Miss Anaid was feeling playful earlier," he sighed, looking at the tangled shreds below the knot.

"I won't have her mistreating you, or any of the staff." Her voice went cold again. He smiled.

"I didn't get the impression she meant any harm," he said.

"Meant or not." She caught his eye and looked hard at him. "I won't have it. She should show you more respect."

"She isn't a vampire," he said. "We've learned to understand something of the nature of vampires. They all start out as humans and are based on a human template, of sorts. Anaid was never human. We have nothing to base an understanding of her kind on."

"Can we keep her?" she asked. "Honestly."

He was quiet for a long moment.

"That must be your decision, as Head of the Hellsing Organization," he said finally. She looked annoyed, so he added. "It would be my advice to make as much use out of her as possible while you can. We've grown accustomed to domesticated monsters." She made a scoffing sound, but he went on. "I don't think domesticated is something Anaid will ever be. She may run wild. We may be forced to destroy her. She may disappear back into the wilderness. Her Mark of Devotion may keep her here. I truly don't know."

Integra was silent for a moment. Her eyes went to the mangled tie and then back to the TV where the torn remains of a leather jacket were being shown.

Elsewhere Alucard was watching Seras and Anaid, who were also watching the news. Anaid was, for once, untroubled by the TV. When the pregnant wife (who it seems was an heiress) came on, weeping and offering any sum for the return of her husband, who she believed was kidnapped, Seras gave her an annoyed look . By the time the real estate agent's husband and children had had their tearful say, the doctor's brother had begged the public for any information, and all the other worried friends and family had been interviewed, the look had become a furious glare. Anaid ignored it. She had changed. In just a few days, she had fleshed out. She wasn't bony, anymore. Her skin looked fresh and rosy. Her hair was sleek and shiny. She looked well-fed, the picture of health.

"How COULD you?" Seras hissed as the teenager's crying mother was shown again.

"I'm not certain what you're asking," Anaid said, entirely too sweetly.

"Why do you suppose all their clothes were removed?" Alucard asked, amusement dripping from the word 'clothes'.

"Ever have a kidney stone?" Anaid asked. She looked sideways at him. He didn't answer, but his smile faded. Anaid nodded wisely. "Try passing a belt buckle sometime."

Walter had come in just in time to hear that part and managed to suppress the laugh that rose in his throat at the two vampires' expressions. Alucard actually grimaced. Seras had pictured it and winced. The butler made it sound like a soft cough to get their attention. All three of them looked up.

"Sir Integra would like a word with you, Alucard," he said. "About the recent unpleasantness."

"My Master is aware that if it was a vampire epidemic, I would know," Alucard said, but he was beginning to fade out already. Walter turned to look at the girls on the couch.

"Were you planning on taking another of your walks this evening, Miss Dumanios?" he asked.

"Of course," Anaid purred, exactly as Seras snapped. "Not this time!"

"I find a stroll gives me an appetite," Anaid went on. Seras was in mid-squawk when the werewolf added. "And what trouble can I get into with Seras here keeping an eye on me?" Seras' jaw fell open. Anaid was smirking. The vampire looked at Walter for help, but he just raised an eyebrow.

"I could always go alone," the werewolf said next, pretending to pout. Her teasing tone came back almost at once though. "I CAN take care of myself quite nicely. And who knows? Maybe I'll meet someone who WILL walk with me awhile." Seras' mouth closed with a snap and settled into a snarl.

"Fine," she growled. "I'll go. One hour, tops. Then we both come back."

"That's all the time I'll need," Anaid said, smiling. She got up from the couch and made a big show of stretching. Seras sighed and got up too, following her to the door.

"Shall I leave some dinner out for you?" Walter asked as they passed him. His eyes were hooded and Seras couldn't tell if he thought this was funny or not. Anaid trailed her fingers through the ruined tie.

"That would be lovely." she said. Seras sighed again and looked miserable, but she gritted her teeth and followed the werewolf out.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Seras changed out of her uniform to go out. The cold didn't really matter to her, but she wore an outfit that she hoped wouldn't look out of place in the early spring chill, jeans and a sweater with a jacket over it. Fashion had never been one of her interests or talents. Anaid took off the kneepads and took down her ponytail. She pulled a big hooded sweatshirt over her shirt and a baseball cap low over her eyes. They stepped out into the cold and started walking towards a busier street.

Anaid seemed to know exactly where she was going and Seras had to walk quickly to keep pace with her. They were quiet, which gave Seras' thoughts plenty of room to thrash and squeal in her head. She had to talk the werewolf out of this somehow. Seventeen people were missing and would never be found. Would Anaid quietly go back to eating sausage and eggs when this mission was over? It was doubtful. Dread went prancing through her stomach. Alucard would see no reason why Seras couldn't join in. She remembered him feeding on the reporter and began to chew on her bottom lip.

"You know," she said to stop herself. "The whole point of this Organization is to protect humanity."

"Not all of it." Anaid had put her hands in the hoodie's front pocket and was looking around eagerly. They were now on a street with shops and restaurants and a dance club. There was a crowd of people there.

"What?"

"I've seen the routine. The Organization protects itself and renders a service to the community. Are you out patrolling for other vampires? Are you following bloodlines to eliminate them? No. You're waiting for the attacks to come to you. Vampires are everywhere. Always have been. The Hellsing Organization could be in every nation, doing the good work, fighting the good fight, every night for years and years. But they aren't. And there's nothing wrong with that. But let's not pretend to be something greater and nobler. You're not."

"W-well, what you're doing isn't right!" Seras almost stamped her foot. "You can't just go around killing innocent people."

"Define innocent." The werewolf's tone was cold, but casual. Seras ground her teeth.

"You know what I mean!" she snapped. "That little girl-"

"What about the girl? Why NOT the girl?" Anaid suddenly turned to lock eyes with her. "Because she was the youngest? Because someone cried for her? Why was she so special?"

"Every life is special." Seras tried to put her hands on Anaid's shoulders to make her point. The werewolf stepped up close, bringing them nose to nose.

"Exactly." she said. "How am I supposed to pick?" She waved an arm at the street of people. "Who deserves to live more than anyone else? The smokey-tasting one was important, wasn't he? Should I only kill people who aren't important? If they're rich and pretty, under or above a certain age, if they're from important families, if their eyes are a certain color, shall I spare them? Why? Who gets to decide that? You? Integra? I'm a hunter. Not a judge. If I see a weakness, I aim for it, no matter who I see it in. What I need can't be delivered in a bucket of ice everyday."

There was enough scorn in that last sentence to remind Seras of what she herself was. The underlying message was clear. Who would YOU kill if you weren't being fed every day? What if a butler wasn't waiting on you hand and foot? Her hands had pulled into fists. Anaid noticed and sighed.

"Go on," she said. "Say it."

"You're a monster."

"Yes." There was a long pause between then, but then Anaid caught her arm. "That's why I have you, though. You're going to enlighten me."

"I- what?"

"You're going to pick one for me, so I'll know what to look for next time."

"What?? No!" Seras yanked her arm free. "Why can't you just eat normal meat like you have been? Beef, chicken..?"

"Why can't you?"

"I...I can't. I have to have the blood." She dropped her voice to a whisper so no one nearby would hear. "You aren't undead though, you can eat other things!"

"It's a simple matter of quantity," Anaid sighed. "I need LOTS of meat. It has to be fresh and bloody, with bones and innards too. I burn it like fuel when I change and heal, just like you do with blood. There are no roaming herds of sheep or buffalo or whatever anywhere near here! I looked! In two more days I have to go meet whoever they send to deal with me. I'm going to lead them to the Cold Table and hopefully their precious heart in a box. I will probably have to fight Selkah. He will probably tear me to shreds. Even if I can't beat him, I need to be strong enough to survive an attack by the second most powerful werewolf of my age. And that's assuming I won't end up fighting with the agent I'm meeting. I must eat to keep my strength. The only thing available in those numbers are..." She waved her arms around the street again.

Seras wasn't quite ready to admit defeat yet, but she had a sinking feeling that she wasn't going to win this argument. Her shoulders slumped involuntarily and Anaid seemed to soften.

"I'll share if you want," she offered quietly. "It might change your mind."

"No."

"It's not like I hurt them," Anaid went on. "Most of them never even see it coming."

"That one woman screamed," Seras said flatly.

"She was screaming before I got there," Anaid shook her head. "And it wasn't her I got. I grabbed the one with the knife. She ran away."

"Wait... what?" Seras stopped in her tracks. "You didn't kill her?"

"I just told you I didn't. I killed the one with the knife. She was smart enough to shut up and run."

"But... they were showing her picture on the news... they think she's dead!"

"Well, think how happy they'll be to see her when she shows up again!"

"She saw you though..." An entirely new thought had occurred to Seras. "She could report what happened..."

"Ahh, the Hellsing priorities again. Protect yourself, and THEN worry about humanity."

"I'm serious!"

"She didn't see me, Seras. Not all my Songs work here in the city, but the Song of the Shadow does. She got to see the fear in HIS face before he disappeared into the dark. That was my gift to her. "

"You're insane."

"By whose standard of measurement?"

"All right, all right. I give up for now." They walked on for a bit, Anaid breathing out clouds of steam in the cold night.

"You said Selkah was second strongest," Seras said after a moment.

"Bastion killed Vize to be Alpha. Vize was strongest."

"Do you think they'll send Anderson to meet you?"

"Unless he tells them about our last fight." Anaid couldn't resist a chuckle that made Seras worry about her. "Ooh, there we go."

"What?"

"That one. Right there. Strayed from the herd." Anaid pointed into the crowd at seeming random. Seras blinked, before the meaning sank in.

"Oh no. No. I'm not helping you do this." The vampire backed away, shaking her hands.

"Sit back and watch then." Anaid's eyes were still on her target, glowing like coals in the shadow of the hat's brim.

"No!" Seras grabbed her arm. "Come on. I'll buy you a pizza or something."

"You can't afford me." Anaid's grin was full of points now.

"You can't!" Seras dug in her heels. Anaid made an exasperated sound. She turned to pin Seras with an irate glare that became thoughtful before the vampire had time to gulp.

"Fine," Anaid said with a disturbingly gentle smile. Seras didn't dare hope she was sincere and kept a tight hold on her arm. "We'll be the prey instead."

"Um, what?" Seras asked. Anaid laughed, an honest merry sound that shouldn't have come from a creature grown sleek on human flesh.

"We're going to be the prey," the werewolf repeated. "Pretty prey. You and me. We shall walk in places sweet girls shouldn't go. Live bait, we'll call it. When the predators come, we'll be oh so scared and helpless. Then, we'll break their ribs open and eat their hearts. That's fair."

"How can you call that fair??" sputtered Seras. Anaid headed towards the club. It wasn't as well lit at that end of the street. Instead of a moving herd, the people there were in little clusters, some talking and laughing, others silent and watching.

"If a wolf comes to your door, it's a terrible, ravening thing." Anaid wiggled her fingers spookily. "If some idiot goes to a wolf den and starts poking a stick in it, he deserves what he gets."

"I... still don't see your logic," Seras said.

"I'm not showing you any," Anaid looked haughty. "I'm merely stating the cold, hungry facts. Now, come on." She set off down an alley and Seras had to hurry after.

"Sir Integra doesn't know you're doing this does she?" Seras asked, desperate now. "She will be furious, Anaid. She might...take action..."

"I was given permission," Anaid snapped. "And it's going to be self-defense this time."

"That's not going to make any difference!" Seras looked around at the buildings on either side of them. There were lights in some of the windows, but no people in sight.

"Look," Anaid pinned Seras with another glare. "I know you used to be human and remember them fondly. I'll even admit that some of them are worth their skins. What I shouldn't have to remind you is that they can also be very nasty. Read their intents when they come after us. See for yourself."

"I still think-"

"Talk, you mean," Anaid gave half a nod over her shoulder. "Talk and talk and not notice, dear guardian, that we're already being hunted."

Seras glanced back and saw that they were in fact being followed now. Three people were walking along a little too casually, half a block behind them. Oh no... she moaned inwardly. They could be taking a shortcut to the next club for all Anaid will care. Go home, you twits! Take that left turn there. Stay away from us! But they didn't. When Seras caught a whiff of their thoughts through her vampiric powers, she was dismayed to find them heavy with malice.

Do NOT prove her right! she thought frantically at them. Stop right there! Go back to the lights and the crowds! Do not follow us down this creepy alley! No one will hear you but me and I don't know how much help I'll be!

"I think it's THIS way!" Anaid said so suddenly and loudly that Seras jumped. She grabbed the vampire's arm and towed her into a much narrower side-alley. No light reached the far end where there was the stone wall of a building on all three sides. No windows marked any of them and they were high enough to block out the sky. The pavement below was wet and shiny. There were heaps of what might've been trash or old furniture on either side, but a clear path to the wall at the end. It smelled surprisingly fresh, as if the garbage had been there long enough for wind and rain to wash it clean.

"Please don't do this," Seras whispered.

"That's perfect," rumbled Anaid, already shapeshifting. "Be sure to tell THEM that. Just stand there and look nervous."

"Anaid..." Seras voice rose in an almost-whine. The werewolf grinned at her.

"Won't touch them," she whispered back. Her voice roughened as her facial structure realigned. "Til they touch YOU." Then, she jumped to the wall and clung there with her claws, poised like a gargoyle. Seras was just about to plead again when the squeak of shoes on the pavement made her turn to see three figures in the alleyway.

"Don't!" she wailed at them, holding up her hands as if to keep them back. "Stay away!" They didn't speak, or even look at each other. They did take the step, towards Seras and into the dark.


	15. Chapter 15

15

The part that Seras would remember later, once safely back in her own room, was the Song. It had been almost tangible, but pitched so dark and low that the alley had had no choice but to sink and dim with it. Anaid had kept her word. She hadn't made a move until one of the people had reached out and grabbed Seras' shoulder. She had been honest too. It had happened much too fast for the three to suffer. The last one managed a look of puzzled apprehension before Anaid struck. Then there was only the ripping of clothing and the crunch of bones.

It hadn't triggered any vampiric hunger in Seras, for which she was grateful. The smell of blood had sent her senses flying wide open, only to disappoint them. It hadn't been otherworldly or sexy. It had been an animal, eating, and not that messily, either. Anaid wasn't a wasteful devourer. She hadn't left anything but the torn clothes. They had disappeared into the mess in the alley with only a kick. If it hadn't been for the smell, Seras wouldn't have known they were there at all. Anaid had licked herself clean, but had refused to shift back to human form no matter how Seras had begged and threatened. They had been forced to head back to the mansion by rooftop. Anaid knew the way.

The werewolf had gulped down the dinner Walter had left out and gone to her room to curl up in a fuzzy heap. Seras had retreated to her own room. Her dread of the killing had been worse than the actual deaths, but that didn't make her feel any better. She was trying to think of what to tell Sir Integra when a knock came at the door. She froze in a whole new wave of dread. While she was staring in horror at the door, the knock came again.

..._just get it over with_... came the feeble thought. It was pathetic, but enough to get her up to answer the door. Her shaking knees went weak with relief to see that it wasn't Integra, but Walter come to check on her.

"Miss Victoria, I couldn't help but notice you seemed upset earlier," he said. "Are you all right?"

"Yes." She stepped back from the door and he followed her inside.

"...Is there anything you'd like to talk about?" he asked. She sat down on her bed with a sigh heavy enough to make her unused lungs ache.

"No." She glanced at him and then back at her feet. "...Well... no." He waited a moment, then turned to go, but she spoke up again and stopped him. "It would've been the same if I'd gone out with Alucard. Wouldn't it? I just keep thinking there's another way... and there never seems to be one... Is something wrong with me??"

"Perhaps you could consider that it's something _right_ with you," Walter said. After a half-second's hesitation, he sat down on the bed next to her. "You've held on to what Alucard lost long ago, and what Anaid never had. You've kept your humanity, which is more than many humans can say. I used to pride myself on being faster and stronger, _better_, than my own kind. It was arrogance, of course, and I paid for it. Now I know better." He was quiet after that, and Seras couldn't quite make herself ask what had happened to him. They sat there in silence for a long moment. "You have power that true monsters can't even guess at. Don't be ashamed of it."

"But Master-"

"You want his approval, but not to be like him." Walter raised an eyebrow at her. "Am I right?"

"I guess so..." She ran a hand through her bangs and pulled her knees up to her chest. Her smile was wobbly and didn't last long. "He'd be angry at me for being this weak."

"I just told you it isn't weakness. You think he doesn't wake under the light of day with forgotten fears clambering in his heart? I told Sir Integra earlier that the difference between vampires and werewolves is that vampires were once human. Alucard wasn't born a powerful vampire, you know. He started out a naked human baby just like the rest of us. Somebody had to change his diapers and wipe his nose and come check on him at night when he woke up afraid. He WAS once a frightened child too, and as much as he doesn't LIKE to remember it, he DOES."

"You really think so?" She hadn't thought of that. Walter almost looked amused.

"You remember your own life don't you? The good and the bad? Why do you think he's any different? He's just older. Age changes many things, Miss Victoria, but not everything." She finally looked up enough for him to look her in the eye. She managed a real smile this time and to their mutual surprise, hugged him.

"I'm glad," she said.

Elsewhere, the whole Section was avoiding the room where Anderson paced. He lived his life by his convictions. He had never allowed his uncertainties much room, but now they had crowded in around him. They had dug in like teeth. He didn't know what was going to happen. He didn't like not knowing. Uncertainty was just a step away from doubt, and he couldn't tolerate that either.

He hadn't told them about the bite. He was still trying to decide if there was any reason to. The scar had faded, but he felt a twinge in it every now and then. Mostly at night. Moreso when he was outside. It could all be in his mind, he reasoned. Fear to stalk him when the creature itself couldn't. And it wasn't just that. Something was going on in Section XIII that no one was telling him. They were all on tiptoe around him, smiling and changing the subject when he walked into a room. And no one would tell him anything about what the plans were for Hellsing. And he knew there WERE plans.

Ridgeway hadn't been hired for nothing. He had come back to report and Maxwell had seemed pleased with the news. But no orders had been issued. Not to Anderson, anyway. He was left to stew over the bite on his shoulder, the time on his hands, and cursed uncertainty pinballing through his head. Something was happening, he was sure of it. Why was no one telling him? Was he being tested somehow? Patience was a virtue he had trouble with, especially in the face of blatant desecration.

So, he paced. It was five angry steps to the desk, three to the wall, and seven to glare out the window, then back again. The last stretch was on hard wood and the sound of his footsteps on it were more satisfying than the muffled thumps from the carpet. He ground his teeth on the way back to the desk and then wondered if they were sharper than usual. He almost checked the mirror before he grimaced and went back to pacing.

He had been doing this to himself for days. A sound or scent or a flash of color would get his attention and he would wonder if his senses were sharper than was natural. He would always end up realizing that he had always been a step ahead of the humans around him. It was his gift. The heathen beast was testing him, making him suspect darker motives behind his God-granted blessings. He had rubbed his arms the other day and started wondering if they had more hair than usual, or if the hair was thicker or coarser than it had been. It wasn't. He had gone around the children with his sleeves rolled up to be sure. None of them had said anything, and he had no doubt they would have if they had noticed. Children were honest that way.

He stomped back to the window and looked out again. The children were being lead outside. His glower lightened. It was recess time. Maybe he could go and sit outside to watch them play. The children had always brought out the best in him. He stretched a little and popped his neck, then stepped out of his pacing pattern for the first time since breakfast and walked to the door. As he swept down the hallway, other members of Section XIII greeted him or simply nodded to acnowledge him. Maybe he was just being paranoid. They weren't avoiding him, just being deferential. As they should, perhaps.

He was feeling much better as he walked out onto the grounds and into the sunshine. Then a quick movement in a window from the building caught his eye. It was Maxwell waving his arms around. Heinkel was there too. She looked uncertain and that made Anderson stop to look more carefully. He hadn't heard of any missions that Heinkel might've been over-enthusiastic in. Then again, the uncertainty spoke up from the back of his mind, he hadn't heard _anything..._

At that moment, both Maxwell and Heinkel looked out the window directly at him. Heinkel dropped her eyes almost at once. Maxwell held his stare for a few seconds then very deliberately turned back to Heinkel and made a 'you may go' gesture. She hurried out of sight, pushing her glasses up to hide her eyes. Maxwell looked back at Anderson for a moment, then turned away again. This time he walked out of sight to where his desk was, and Anderson was left glaring at an empty window. Something WAS going on. And just because no one was telling didn't mean there was no way to find out.


	16. Chapter 16

16

The walls of the Hellsing manor were thick, but that didn't stop the sound of the shouting.

Earlier, Seras had been called in to explain why she and Anaid had left the grounds again. For lack of a better plan, Seras had told Integra everything. Integra took the news very calmly. Not a single muscle in her face moved for nearly an entire minute. Finally, she had sent Seras out and called Anaid in. Seras had braced herself for an explosion, stretching out vampiric hearing through the thick walls for the sound of gunshots or Songs. Anaid had only been inside for a few minutes before she was dismissed. She came out a little wide-eyed.

"What happened??" Seras whispered loudly as soon as the werewolf came down the stairs. Anaid shrugged. They both heard Integra call for Alucard and felt his presence move from wherever it had been to the office. That was when voices were raised.

"What did she say?"

"She asked if I knew what a loup-garou was."

"Um. Did you?"

"Sure. It's what the French used to call us."

"And why is that important?"

"She heard it on the news. She asked flat out if I was killing humans. I said I had been since Mr. Ridgeway's visit. She wanted to know how I had come to such a decision and I told her the same thing I told you that night."

"And??"

"She went all still, like a heron before it stabs some little swimmer through the brain. Then she said I could go."

"You looked a little shaken..." Seras couldn't resist pointing out. Anaid grinned in a way that would've looked sheepish on a less predatory creature.

"I didn't _want_ to be stabbed through the brain," she pointed out. Seras almost chuckled, but then, a scream of outrage rose from behind the office door. They heard a 'How' and a much shriller 'DARE' and what could've been a 'You' before the tirade dropped down to it's barely intelligible roar. Seras couldn't believe that Anaid would have gotten off so easy and said so. Anaid nodded.

"You'll probably be punished..." Seras added. She looked sideways at the werewolf.

"Something worse than being impaled, do you think?" Anaid asked after a moment of thought.

"I... wouldn't think so," Seras admitted. "Unless she decides to destroy you outright."

"What do I do then?"

"What?"

"What do I do? Am I allowed to fight back? Or do I just show throat until she gets tired of hurting me?"

"She will intend to destroy you!" Seras was horrified at the thought of facing her Master's Master in full execution mode. Anaid gave her an annoyed squint.

"I know, I know. Now, am I to pretend to be dead until my carcass can be disposed of?" Anaid made little walking gestures with her fingers. Where had she picked up such a weird mannerism? "OR... Can I get up and look contrite and have things go back to normal? What's the protocol?"

"You... don't think she can kill you..."

"Not with her usual methods."

"Her usual method is to have Alucard destroy the target she picks!"

"I knowwww!" The squint was now a glare. "I'm just saying, it's not going to be that easy."

"Anderson almost killed you." Seras reminded her, a little anger working in with the worry.

"You too." Anaid tilted her head playfully. "And now that I have the moon to smile on me, I'll stand a better chance."

"Master once told me that he has destroyed whole armies," Seras said. She was determined to make Anaid understand the trouble she was in. "You think he can't kill one werewolf?? And you're Bound by your Devotion. You can't fight him, even if you wanted to! Or you would have that first night."

"All very true," Anaid agreed. Then she looked sly. "Will you miss me if I die?"

"Of course I will, you idiot!" Seras voice was rising too. "But that won't make you any less dead, you bloody stupid-"

"AHEM."

Seras looked up to find Integra looking down at them both from the top of the stairs. Anaid smirked, but then looked meek to cover it. Seras was flustered and wondered how much the Hellsing Head had heard. She started to speak, then squirmed, and looked down. Integra paid her no attention. The blue eyes were on Anaid.

"Alucard had been explaining a Mark of Devotion to me," she said. "Why would creatures as powerful as werewolves allow such a thing to be placed on them?"

"I was a child when mine was placed." Anaid said. "I didn't know any better."

"You didn't know you were pledging your life away?"

"It wasn't like that. We're pack animals. Swearing devotion to each other is like promising to remember to breathe. Bastion twisted it to serve him. It's a knack vampires have." A touch of something that might've been bitterness surfaced in Anaid's voice, then disappeared. "I was chosen out of my entire generation. Christiana picked me to be her playmate and Bastion gave me to her. He told me she would be my sister now. To protect as if she was younger, to obey as if she was older. I was pleased to be picked first for something, proud to be trusted with something so important. Taking the Mark was like wearing a uniform."

"A uniform won't kill you if you disobey your commander."

"My Mark will." Anaid sighed. "If my Master commands me to kill no humans, and I'm fool enough to disobey, the Mark will kill me."

"Your Masters are all dead. What Devotion do you have to us?"

"My Masters _are _all dead," Anaid repeated. "All I have now is you."

"My servant has told me that he gave you permission to hunt humans."

"Yes, Lady."

"He is no longer permitted to make such decisions. You will eat what you are given within these walls. You are forbidden to hunt my people and _restricted_-" She put special emphasis on the word. "-from killing at all unless you are given direct orders to do so. You will also obey Seras Victoria from now on. She is your _new_ sister. That-" A gloved hand was pointed at the scar over Anaid's heart. "Is an **_Order_**."

"Yes, Lady." Anaid said after a fraction of hesitation. Integra was watching closely and saw it.

"Do you know what this is?" she asked, bringing an object from behind her back. It was a metal collar, about in inch thick, with a large ring get into the front. A large, heavy chain hung from it. It also had four thin and very sharp-looking bolts set into it. It smelled like silver. Seras couldn't help but gulp and looked quickly at Anaid. The werewolf blinked at the collar and while her expression remained casual, the muscles in her throat tensed visibly.

"It's designed to bolt directly into the neck vertebrae," Integra went on "I found it among the many occult devices in my ancestors' collection years ago and never saw a use for it." A flame had lit in the usually frigid eyes. Anaid kept her own eyes lowered. "If you defy me, Anaid Dummanios, I will **_find_** a use for it. Do you understand me?"

"I do."

Seras blinked at that. If Anaid disobeyed she would be dead. What fear would she have of a silver collar then? But then, Anaid was a wily one. If there was any loophole in Integra's orders, she would probably find it. Perhaps the Hellsing Head was simply making sure that there would be no 'creative' obedience. Anaid was looking the picture of meekness at the moment. Seras knew exactly how quickly that could change. She looked back at the collar. Integra's hand had begun to tremble from the weight of it. _And she would really bolt that thing to Anaid, knowing how badly silver will hurt her. Would she do the same thing to me??_

"Are you going to bring in sheep or something, Sir?" she asked. She didn't know why the sudden urge to be contrary had flared up. It sputtered to a timid death as soon as Integra's attention settled onto her.

"Sheep are good," said Anaid, brightening. Integra turned from Seras and gave Anaid a look that should've made her marrow crystallize. Anaid just looked hopeful. "And those fuzzy little cows..." The look dropped a few more degrees.

"It will be discussed," Integra said. "Among other things. In the meantime, the body of the bus driver has been found on the same backroad you two ruined the van on when you fought Paladin Anderson. I believe that is near where you are going to meet the Iscariot agent in a few days." She looked hard at Anaid, who nodded, then turned back to Seras. "Take a small team of the CJ operatives and see what you can find before the usual authorities arrive." She held out the collar and Walter appeared to take it from her. Satisfied that both her inhuman minions were eyeing the thing with the proper dread, Integra turned her back on them all and swept off into her office.

"Ladies," Walter said, half-bowing. He disappeared down a hallway, taking the collar with him.

"Am I part of the small team?" Anaid asked. Seras sucked in a breath and let it ease out through her fangs.

"I suppose," she said. "If you can behave yourself this time."

"I have sworn on my life to obey," Anaid said. She put her hand over the Mark. The movement looked very much like a pledge. "Blood taken, blood given. Protection for obediance, strength for protection. Cut into my flesh and sealed with the blood of my Master."

"I get the point," Seras sighed. Anaid grinned in a way that said she didn't think so. They were almost to the grounds where the team was already waiting when something the werewolf said clicked in Seras' brain. She gasped and nearly dripped the rifle she was setting on her shoulder. Anaid was already trotting out to the vehicle when Seras ran to catch up.

"Your Mark wasn't sealed by any of us!" she hissed.

"I wondered when one of you would catch on to that." Anaid said, sounding amused.

"It was Bastion's blood, wasn't it??" Seras felt a creak in the rifle that meant she was clutching it too tightly, but didn't care. "The Mark will only keep you loyal to HIM!"

"Oh no," Anaid purred. but her eyes went wicked. "It means only he can kill me with it. My loyalty is kept by those I am actually loyal to."

"Sir Integra thinks-"

"Your Master is the one that explained the Mark of Devotion to her," Anaid pulled open the vehicle door and looked over her shoulder at Seras. "Who knows what he told her or how much he even knows?"

"You could turn on us at any time."

"Always could. Haven't yet." Anaid got into the back seat and nodded politely to the two soldiers already there. One of them said hi. The other just nodded back. A third with a map and a headset phone was in the passenger seat. He looked expectantly at Seras, who gound her teeth for a moment, then got in as well.


	17. Chapter 17

**Quick note: ** I just wanted to thank everybody who took the time to review! I hope some of the questions have been answered already. There should be more answered later! Thanks again.

Chapter 17

_It didn't make sense! _Seras brain was burning away behind her eyes and her driving was suffering because of it. The soldier in the passenger seat had casually reached for the door handle and was now clinging quietly to it. Seras didn't notice. Her attention was on Anaid in the back seat. _A creature as wild as Anaid had no reason to accept the leadership of a human and the company of vampires. Was she up to something? She couldn't just be lonely. _

_We've been had, plain and simple. That's the only rational explanation. Isn't it? Is it??_ A soft sound came from one of the soldiers in the back as Seras took a corner without slowing down.

_When she was woken up, she was out of her mind with hunger_, Seras remembered. _Why didn't she attack Alucard?? The sight of him seemed to shock her back to herself. Did she mistake him for Bastion and then decide to play along? Was she smart enough to know she couldn't beat him and played submissive to save her own life? _

_Maybe she wasn't, though. Maybe she wasn't picky about which vampire she served. She had to do something. It might as well be what she had always done. She thought Bastion was dead until she saw Selkah. Is that when she turned sneaky? DID she turn sneaky?? Would she desert us to return to Bastion's service?_

Seras looked at Anaid in the rear view mirror. The werewolf appeared to be dozing in the back seat.

"Y-you need to take the left up here," the passenger soldier. He pointed with one hand while his knuckles went white on the handle again. They were leaving the city limits again. Seras' mind went back to the last time she had been here. It was a different road, and still a little bumpy, but nowhere near as bad as the road Anderson had attacked them on. They slowed down as they saw light farther up and arrived at the crime scene.

There were only two officials still there. Seras wasn't sure what they had been told, but knew they wouldn't cause much fuss. Most of the time, Hellsing was taken for some sort of government intelligence and allowed to wander around without incident. It was raining, almost. It was a heavy drizzle, just enough to coat everything and make it shiny and slippery. She picked her way down to the body while headset-soldier talked to the authorities,and the other two fanned out to look for any other sign of what had happened.

Anaid came to stand next to Seras and they both looked down at the body. It had been there for a long time, but partial decomposition couldn't hide the fact that it had been torn wide open. Huge claws had ripped the man from his thigh to his chin. It looked like one slash had done all the damage, and hollowed the poor driver out like a jack o'lantern.

"Selkah," Anaid said.

"You're positive?" Seras asked through her teeth. Anaid ignored the glare.

"Unless there's more of us I don't know about," she said with a shrug. "And I did a call while I was out hunting alone. Just to see if there were any others anywhere in the city. No one answered."

"Lonely for your own kind?"

"Curious. It's hard to understand that they are all gone. There used to be so many of us. Now it's all humans, scurrying around like ants."

"They're all just insects to you then."

"I meant in numbers, Seras. I meant the neverending procession of them, in and out of their little tunnels and holes and doorways. If you insist on being angry at me, at least stick to the real reason without making up more of your own." Anaid walked away and circled the body slowly, leaving Seras to stew. The rain soaked her hair and dripped down her cheeks into her collar. The cold didn't bother her as much as the rain in her eyes. _I should've worn a hat, _she thought, and the mundane idea diffused some of the anger in her. _And what did she have to be angry about anyway? All she had to do was report to Alucard. He probably already knew. If he wanted Anaid dealt with, he could do it himself. _

**Isn't that what you were afraid of, only a few hours ago**? Her Master's voice chuckled into her mind.

"Did you know?" she asked back, speaking aloud and getting a strange look from the nearest soldier. Alucard's mental answer was smug.

**Of course. The moonchild's link to an A vampire is not something that would go overlooked. He's managed to avoid Hellsing's notice for hundreds of years, but we can find him through the bond of blood in his cast-off toy. **

_Why didn't you tell me?_ Seras remembered to keep the question mental this time.

**You didn't ask.**

_Can we trust her?_

**Could we ever? **

Seras was silent while she processed that.

**You should be proud of yourself, **Alucard said after another moment. **You're growing into a real vampire after all.**

_What is THAT supposed to mean?? _

**Most vampires don't have any tolerance for 'equals'. They may accept a superior, if there is no other choice, but they can usually only trust someone utterly subservient to them. That's why they like ghouls. Isn't that what's bothering you?**

_NO. It's just that-_

**She's still jumping to obey like always, but now you know that if she wanted to refuse, she COULD. And you're afraid she will.**

_I don't want to fight her._

**But you will if you have to.**

_...Yes._

**So what's the problem, police girl?**

_Can she be trusted??_ Seras asked again.

**Her behavior hasn't changed. Why did you trust her to begin with?**

_Because...because YOU did!_

He laughed at her then, loud and long in her brain and she found herself blushing angrily. Still giggling his voice faded away from her mind. She was angry all over again, at him this time. With his presence gone from her awareness, she began to feel a new one. She turned and looked. The trees were coated in the rain and it was cold enough that it might freeze before morning. The lights from the investigation vans turned everything silver. Seras felt eyes and was expecting to see a cross and bayonets appearing out of the haze. If it was Anderson, he'd have charged by now, she told herself. He's not the stalking type.

Who was then? It made her uneasy, so she was glad when a bodybag was rolled out and the soldiers came back with their reports. The body had been killed elsewhere, and dumped here. No sign of the missing internal organs had been found. Anaid strolled back over. Seras saw her glance up into the woods too. Definitely time to go.

She hurried them back into their vehicle after a quick thank you to the authorities and started away. She felt useless and let one of the soldiers drive this time. _Why was I even sent out if there's nothing but a dead body_, she grouched to herself. _No tire tracks, no footprints, just a gutted corpse left by an unknown werewolf. And what am I supposed to do about that? I can't even figure out the known one._ She looked at Anaid again. Anaid was sitting slightly hunched, her head tilted like she was listening for something over the sound of the engine.

"What is it?" Seras asked finally.

"Ngh." Anaid said. "I don't know. Something, but maybe not."

Seras sighed and turned away. She looked out the window and something in the side mirror caught her eye. It was a gleam of yellow light. She looked again and only had a second to register the huge shape running long side the van. It was moving at a speed that kept her from seeing what it was, but she got another glimpse of glowing yellow eyes before it rammed into their side. The windows shattered and the van was thrown up on one side. It careened into the ditch and flipped. Not again, came a detached thought, and then there was impact and the sound of metal tearing.


	18. Chapter 18

-118

Seras was thrown hard into the driver. She heard the air explode out of his lungs as she flattened him against the door that was slamming inwards at him from the other side. Cold air poured in as the door was ripped free. Seras fumbled for her gun, but then was crushed into the dashboard as the backseat was suddenly very full of Anaid. There was a squeak as the werewolf trampled the soldier between her and their attacker and she burst out of the van.

Seras fought her way clear of the wreckage to see two monster wolves battling across the road. A werewolf battle was not a quiet thing. As silent as the attack had been until the impact, the night was now split with howls and screams. The second wolf was massive, even compared to Anaid.

It had to be Selkah. It was rusty-brown and zigzagged with scars. Next to him, Anaid's silvery form was almost dainty-looking. He threw his shoulder into her and sent her staggering. His jaws clamped on her head and bit down. Bone crunched and when Anaid threw herself out of his grip, she left an eye and most of that side of her face in his teeth. Some of her fangs had been broken and she spit them out.

Seras screamed and started firing. Bullets smacked into Selkah's hide like raindrops into a red puddle. He half-turned to make eye contact and something still-human in Seras cringed in primal fear. Then, she pulled the trigger and the feral eye exploded with a silver bullet.

It blew out the back of his head. Selkah screamed, shaking his head back and forth. Anaid attacked again, ripping into his neck. Blood sprayed over her, turning her pelt as red as his. He rolled backwards, dragging her with him. Then, he spun, shifting to his human form so quickly that he slid from her grip. He rolled under her, snapping her front leg as he went.

Anaid gasped and shifted to human form too, putting her weight back on two legs. Selkah was still under her. Seras was still firing. Selkah twisted again to meet Anaid's now-human body and slammed a clawed hand upwards into her abdomen. Breath and blood sprayed from her mouth and Seras scrambled to reload. But Selkah had stopped. He was holding Anaid over his head at the end of his arm, glaring up at her with his remaining gold eye. The torn socket was steaming in the cold night. It was healing, but the silver bullet made things go slower.

Anaid was glaring down. Her eye was healing too, slightly faster. Her arm had healed already and all of her claws were deep into his arm. The rain mixed with their blood and sent rivulets down both their bodies. If Anaid was in pain, it didn't show on her mutilated face. Her tattered lips pulled back to show very intact teeth.

Anaid growled. In the sudden stillness, the sound carried all the way to the recovering soldier in the van and stopped Seras' finger on the trigger. It wasn't an angry sound, or a battle cry. It was a warning, plain and simple.

Neither werewolf moved for a long minute. Seras was ready to fire straight into Selkah's skull as soon as something happened. She wanted to see what would. The contorted snarl faded on Selkah's face. He was breathing out huge clouds of steam into the cold. Seras saw disbelief twist his expression and something lit in the good eye. It might've been hope, but before she could wonder about that, the soldier in the van opened fire into Selkah's back. He grimaced and turned. Seras started firing as well, hoping to stop him from charging.

He flung Anaid off his claws at Seras. The movement looked casual but there was enough force behind it to flatten Seras and drive the breathe out of Anaid. Selkah lunged and took a swipe at the soldier. The blow tore off the man's arm and up into his neck, nearly severing it as well. He gasped and his life poured out in only a moment. Selkah was gone again by the time Seras got back to her feet. She looked around at the smashed van, the dead soldier, and the unconscious one still in the van. Next to her sprawled Anaid, still wheezing a little.

"Get up," she heard herself say. "You aren't that hurt."

"Your concern is truly heart-warming," panted Anaid, but she did get back up. She was hunched over her injured belly.

"Why didn't he kill you? Why did he stop?"

"I think... he's lonesome."

Seras was staring down the gun sight before she even realized it. Anaid's good eye stared right back up it.

"Do you really expect me to believe that?" Seras voice had to squeeze out through her clenched fangs. "Tell me the truth."

"For three hundred years, he has believed that he was the last. Now he isn't. He doesn't really want to kill me, Seras. No more than you do. Wolves aren't like vampires. Being alone is bad for us. It sends us off our heads."

"You're either lying or completely crazy," Seras snapped. "Or do you really believe that monster **_misses_** you?"

"He's the one that's crazy," Anaid sighed. "What I believe is that he has suffered something too terrible for him to be trusted. I think he's insane." That was said matter-of-factly enough to make Seras lower the gun.

"Selkah has no home and no pack," Anaid went on. "And without those, he isn't a wolf anymore. Whatever he's become, it can't be trusted. He wasn't acting under orders just now. If he was, he'd've stayed to finish the job. He didn't know what to do, but he had to do something. Attacking probably felt the most natural."

"And are you tired of being the last too?" Seras hadn't felt this intense since she lost control of herself fighting the ghouls. Maybe it was all the blood in the air. "Do you want him back?"

"I'm luckier than he is," said Anaid. "I have here, and you. Where would I go if I left you? What would I do if I found a place?" The werewolf managed a smile that was too sad to be cocky, and Seras had to remind herself not to soften.

"That still doesn't explain why I should believe you, or trust you to be right if I did." Her voice quavered and she hated the sound of it. Anaid would pounce on that weakness, she was sure.

"Must I wear the collar to convince you?" Anaid said. "Bring it then. Skewer my bones with silver. Drag me around on a chain like a toy." She stood up and locked eyes with the vampire. "Or better yet, tear my Mark open, let my heart bleed out all of Bastion's hold on me," she added. _If you have the spine to do it,_ her tone said. "Pour your own blood in and say the words. Become my Master instead of my 'sister'. If I allowed that, if I accepted it, if I was broken and mindless in my servitude, would you trust me then?"

"It, that, I..." Seras started to flounder, but caught herself and rallied back. "That's awful, and I wouldn't do that to you! Un-unless I had to... if... I... I just want to be sure that you, you wouldn't do that to... any of us."

"That's probably how the human soldiers felt about you at first." Anaid smiled. "You've never hurt any of them, have you?"

"You have." Red eyes bored into the silver ones, but Anaid didn't look away this time.

"They weren't my pack then. Not they are. Wolves don't betray." Anaid's voice went flat. "That's a human habit. Not all vampires outgrow it."

"And Selkah?"

"Hasn't betrayed anyone. He thinks **_I've_** betrayed Bastion, but the fact that the Mark hasn't killed me means Bastion must be dead. He's still faithful to a Master long gone. How much more devoted do you want?"

"You don't think he betrayed you?"

"Bastion was still alive when I was abandoned." Anaid said. "Selkah would've been obeying him, not betraying me."

"So you don't blame him at all?" Seras voice rose with incredulousness. Anaid's usual grin was a grim version of itself. She blinked rapidly as a pupil formed into her healing eye.

"I'll have to be sure of what happened before I decide who to blame," she said. "Can you call home for a ride or must we start walking?"


	19. Chapter 19

19

Heinkel was just glad she hadn't had to ask Anderson for directions. The team that had been called in to retrieve him and the bodies of the relic team had dropped her off at the same spot. They had been gone for only a few minutes. Heinkel paced in a small circle. She didn't want to go down the stairs into the ruin. She had been given Anderson's report to read and didn't want to see what mess was left. There was still the smell of carnage drifting up the stairs, faint but definite.

It had been awhile since she had been sent out by herself. She hadn't been nervous, but the longer she waited out in the woods, the more she became aware of how loud and fast her heartbeat was. That wouldn't do, she told herself. Her orders were clear. She was to be as calm and 'professional' as possible. She had play nice until the relic was back in Catholic hands. Maxwell had apologized, but insisted that she had to curb her natural sense of righteous outrage for this job. That was why Yumie hadn't been invited, and probably why Anderson had been so on edge.

The Paladin didn't have a guileful bone in his body, Heinkel admitted with half a smile. He could no more pretend to be civil towards his enemies than he could flap his arms and fly. Even to regain the Morse Heart. It was probably driving him crazy to have to sit back and play diplomacy games instead of just claiming what was rightfully theirs. To be honest, it was getting to her too.

She turned and came up quickly when she saw a slight figure standing quietly by the stone doorway. Heinkel hadn't heard a sound and she nearly drew her guns before she remembered she was supposed to be playing nice. She saw the Hellsing emblem on the breast of the jacket and forced herself to relax. They weren't going to get the relic back by shooting the one who knew where it was.

She couldn't help but be a little disappointed at her contact. It was a woman, shorter than Heinkel, and nondescript. She wore the Hellsing uniform, but casually, with grayed-out brown hair pulled into a ponytail. Nothing remarkable about that.

Heinkel had been halfway expecting the blond vampire, or at least the butler. Her fiery nature was almost ready to take offense that they thought so little of the relic and the Vatican's right to it, but she forced herself to calm down. It was harder than she thought. The contact didn't seem to notice.

"Are you ready?" she asked. Straight to business then. Heinkel nodded. The stranger started off into the woods without another word, and Heinkel broke into a jog to keep up.

"What's your name?" she called.

"Anaid."

"I'm Heinkel."

"Hi."

After that there was no conversation. Anaid didn't look like much, but she moved like smoke through the trees. She didn't make a sound and it was amazing how well she blended into the background. Heinkel was panting after only a few minutes, and all too aware of the noise she was making. It seemed like everything she touched cracked or rustled or caught on her robes. Anaid didn't seem to have that problem. They went on for what seemed like hours. Heinkel had to put her mission out of her mind just to concentrate on the journey.

Finally, they found themselves in the grounds behind the castle Hellsing had found Anaid in. They went walking through a field of stones that it took Heinkel a moment to recognize as crumbling tombstones. She stopped and looked closer at one of the carvings.

"This is holy ground," Heinkel said, surprised.

"Holy is as holy does," Anaid muttered, then said more loudly. "You stole it from the Druids or some such. They used to sacrifice here, on the Cold Table, when the moon was full." She smiled then, a little too toothily.

"We didn't **steal** it..." Heinkel began.

"You took it and never gave it back," Anaid said before she got very far. "And put the high priest to death on the his own alter. That's what started this whole mess."

"What??"

"You believe in magic?"

The change in subject managed to distract Heinkel's angry retort.

"I've killed plenty who claimed to use it" she said. "Whatever black arts they had was no match for the will of God and a blessed bullet."

"I never did think much of it until I saw what Bastion could do," Anaid's voice was soft and distant. "There are strange things in the world, but most of the conjurers I knew were either frauds or wisemen with a flair for showmanship. Bastion could do things though. Real things. And the table just made him stronger."

"What are you talking about?" Heinkel was trying to remember anything about tables or a Bastion in Anderson's report.

"Have you fought vampires before?"

"Of course! Well, a few. I'm not the expert Paladin Anderson is..."

"I've heard of the Paladin!" A cheerful, impish light had come back to Anaid's face. "What's he like?"

"You've heard the Hellsing's tales, I'm sure," sniffed Heinkel.

"There's a rumor that he isn't human himself," Anaid said, just to stir the flames. Sure enough, Heinkel's color rose in outrage.

"How dare they?? If they had any respect for humanity at all, they wouldn't betray it with unholy alliances-"

"All right, enough." Anaid chuckled. There was no stopping an offended Vatican agent though.

"-with demon monsters!! They could've killed it when they had the chance, but they signed their souls away in a bargain for power! Now the entire bloodlined is doomed to either destroy the creature, be destroyed by it, or loose their souls in alliance with it, and everyone knows this generation's Hellsing will be the end of the legacy!"

"We're almost there. You need to be quiet." Anaid had stopped and was looking around. She knew the way, no matter how the landscape had changed, but something had wormed its way into her awareness. The last time she had felt something like it had been right before Selkah attacked the van. It was hard to be sure with Heinkel ranting away.

"I know they call her the virgin knight, but she's the last daughter, and the line will die with her unless she does something about it and why else would she keep herself intact this long with her precious family name at stake unless she was planning on taking the monster up on his offer? And don't tell me he hasn't made it! As obsessed with power as all the Hellsings have been, she knows that it's better to be a vampire than a ghoul, so she's preparing for the inevitable. And that would be pitiable except that she could be free of the creature, _but she won't give up the POWER_!!"

"I said quiet!" Anaid could feel eyes and intent behind them, hard and cold.

"_**We could save her**_!" Heinkel was wild-eyed and all but frothing now. "_**We could save them all if only they would submit**_-"

"Shut up or I will leave you!" hissed Anaid. She took a step toward Heinkel, planning to throttle the other woman silent if need be. Something beat her to it. There was a rush of movement and the sound of Heinkel's next words being knocked out of her with all her breath. Selkah was there and gone in a blink, still taking time to stare a challenge into Anaid's wide eyes. He took Heinkel with him.

Anaid heard gunfire and a choked off cry before Selkah left her range of senses. She stood there a moment, shocked in spite of herself. That Selkah could be so fast and stealthy amazed her, and his lack of scent made her skin crawl. It was unnatural, even by her standards.

She waited to see if he would come back and fight until she realized that if he had meant to fight her, he would've killed Heinkel with the first strike and not bothered to take her with him. Selkah had a plan, which was dangerous. He was as wily as he was powerful. Anaid considered for a moment. Her orders were to lead the Vatican Agent to the relic. Now there was no agent to lead. Should she just go home and face her chain of command with a shrug and a story of failure? Perhaps a better alternative would be to take the relic to a Vatican agent? Even if it wasn't the one that had been sent. No one could complain then. That decided, Anaid sniffed the air carefully. The stalked vibe still hung over her, and she looked once the way Selkah had gone before turning her back and heading on towards the Cold Table.


	20. Chapter 20

Nothing was working. Heinkel had never fought something she hadn't been able to kill before. Even the more powerful vampires she'd taken on had shown **some** signs of damage. Her bullets had splashed into the strange man's flesh and been gone. The wounds simply closed over. That in itself should've been impossible.

Regenerators expelled the bullets. This being seemed to absorb them. He wasn't a Regenerator. God help her, what WAS he then??

The knife in her sleeve hadn't done any better. He had laughed at her. She could feel it vibrate up the blade in his neck, making the hilt shiver in her hand. He had looked her in the eye, and she had physically felt her courage fail. Any resolve she might've held onto was trapped in the amber of that unnatural stare. She didn't want to fight him. She couldn't. All she could do was run and hide.

She had let go of the knife to stagger back from him. She collided with something warm, spun, and found it was him, already blocking her way. His hand closed around her shoulder and popped it from its socket. The pain snapped through the panic and she screamed.

Heinkel stumbled back again, falling when one of her knees gave, and scooting until her back hit something solid. It wasn't him this time. It felt like cold stone, and he hadn't moved. He just stood there, smiling like a boy with a magnifying glass over an anthill. He was playing with her.

_Cat and mouse_, she thought, trying to get her wits back. _Down to the claws_. Heinkel tried to take stock of her own injuries before he moved again. The worst pain so far was the most recent. Her whole side radiated pain from the dislocated shoulder. She was afraid her ribs had been broken in his first strike, but hadn't tasted blood yet, so hopefully that meant no internal damage. Something had also wrenched in her back, and there were a set of claw slashes across the back of one leg.

_Just to show he could've hamstrung me if he wanted… _she thought. A touch of anger made it through the fear and she latched on to the more familiar emotion. How dare he do this? To her? A servant of the Almighty God?? She forced her eyes back to her captor. He had pulled the knife out of his neck and was twirling it idly over his fingers. It had been blessed. Why wasn't it hurting him??

_Even mice can bite back_, she reminded herself before her nerve could waver. _My guns are empty, he has the knife, what else do I have?_ She found herself looking at the scar on his chest. It was jagged and wide, but in the shape of a cross. That meant someone had found a way to hurt him. _Think, think! What can I do? God will give me a weapon, but I must reach out to take it._

She cradled her arm, feeling gingerly at the joint to see if it was something she could pull back into place on her own. Even that light touch made her head reel. When her vision cleared again, she gasped to find him crouching over her. Her whole body recoiled back against the wall and she felt something dig into her hip. Then, she remembered that on a few occasions she had needed to deliver an unbeliever alive. She had a vial of a paralyzing poison that had kept the unbeliever in a state close enough to death to keep Yumie from finishing the job.

It didn't happen often, but she still carried the vial with her on missions. If it hadn't broken, maybe…. Her train of thought was violently derailed when she felt a feverishly hot tongue drag over the claw slashes on her leg.

"Stop it!" she screamed, swinging her other leg at his face. Selkah blocked it easily, catching her ankle and holding her leg in the air. She thrashed despite how badly it hurt, and he folded the good leg over the cut one and held them both down by the ankle.

"Poor thing," he sighed. "Poor human thing. Sent to fight monsters with mortal weapons. It isn't fair. Your masters should know better. " He stroked her cheek with his free hand and she couldn't help but flinch, hating herself for it when he purred.

"I know what it's like," he said. "To be sent to do things you know you shouldn't do. By masters who could not've had anything to do with it because they never left their chairs. It's a question of devotion, of faith. You wear the clothes of a holy man, so perhaps you do understand."

Heinkel blocked his words out. His voice was enough to play havoc with her nerves without hearing what he actually said. It was like velvet over rusty fishhooks, warm and soft enough to lull until the barbs sank through and infection set in. As long as he blathered on though, maybe he wouldn't notice her left hand creep to her back pocket.

The vial was there, still intact, thank heaven. It was set up like a bee sting. Heinkel flicked the cap back with her thumb, careful not to jab herself on the hollow blade just under it. Selkah's hand slid up to cradle her chin, bringing her attention back to him. How did she keep forgetting to watch him?? Maybe it was shock, maybe it was his damned lulling voice. Another gentle twist of her fingers brought the blade up, while she did her best to glare angrily at him.

He stroked the rough pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. It was gentle enough to make her wonder if he might try to kiss her. It was disgusting, but if he did, it could be the opening she needed. She squirmed, bringing her arm around for a quick jab as soon as he brought a vein close enough. In mid-caress, Selkah's thumbnail/claw flicked over her lips, laying them open as neatly as a razor.

Heinkel gasped. The taste of blood registered a second before the pain did..

"You bastard!!" she screamed, swinging the vial at him. It didn't matter where she stabbed him now, as long as she hurt him. It hit him square in the mouth. The blade cut him, the glass shattered, digging into his lips and gums. Poison splashed out over his tongue. He didn't even try to dodge it. Then, quick as a snapping turtle, he bit down into her wrist.

Heinkel screamed again. Her own poison leaked into her blood. His blood was probably mixing with it too. She tried to fight him, but her dislocated arm didn't have any power in it, even when she could force it to hit him. He growled softly, scissoring his jaws to get a better hold. She could barely hear him over her own whimpers.

He still had her wrist in his teeth. A hot numbness was starting to spread from the bite. Her own poison. Both her blood and his dribbled on her legs, until he finally spit her arm out. His cuts had healed. She couldn't even lift the arm anymore. Paralysis spread in a hot wave over her chest. Selkah grinned at her, blood streaking his chin.

She didn't have an tricks left. Even if she had, she no longer had the strength to use them. He knew that. He had let her try everything, knowing that when she did run out, she would know it too. The only thing better than a defeated enemy was an enemy who knew full well that she was defeated.

"You can be killed," Heinkel whispered. "Even if I can't do it…" Something like shame darkened in her eyes. "Someone WILL be strong enough. Next time."

Selkah seemed to consider that.

"You don't have to give up," he said after a moment. "I have fought too, but there comes a time to all warriors when you have no fight left, and all you can do is survive. Your weapons have failed you, and the human part of you is spent." His voice dropped to a seductive rumble. "What else do you have in there?"

His voice fell even deeper into the crooning first notes of a Song. Heinkel shivered, and not that far away, Anaid's ear perked up.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

"I knew you couldn't stay away," Anaid chuckled. She was standing on a branch halfway up an oak tree and smiling down at Paladin Anderson. A trail of bayonets marked her trail through the woods and up the tree trunk.

"If you throw another blade at me, I shall be cross," she said as he bared his teeth. "I'm _working_." The fact that she was up a tree didn't seem to matter.

"You've already betrayed the agreement," Anderson growled, glaring at her. "You were supposed to meet our agent-"

"I DID."

"And you were supposed to lead that agent to the relic!" He set one foot on the tree trunk. She had no doubt he'd go leaping up after her given the first provocation.

"I WAS! But she kept yammering away and got herself caught." Anaid suddenly looked thoughtful. "You'll do, though. The agreement was to lead 'a' Vatican agent to the box. You're a Vatican agent. I'll lead you to it."

Anderson hesitated. He had hiked all the way out to the ruins and followed Heinkel's trail through the woods. The sound of her gunshots had brought him at a run, and he hadn't been the least surprised to find Anaid, but not his fellow agent.

"I _tried_ to lead you to it that first night, if you'll recall," she added, while he processed that. "But you were all paranoid and stabby, and NOW it's gonna cost you an airplane. What do you think the Hellsing will charge you next time?"

"Where is Heinkel?" he asked, as calmly as he was able.

"I don't know," she said honestly. He felt his molars dig into each other.

"And why," he asked, fighting down his temper one last time. "Should I believe a word **you **say?"

"Because," she said, crouching down to all fours on her branch. "I can find you the still-beating heart of a long-dead martyr."

They locked eyes for a moment. Was it worth it to tolerate the heathen creature to regain the last remnant of a martyr to the Holy God? Was it even possible, when all he wanted was to rip her head off as she had done his? Just because he didn't remember it perfectly didn't mean he had forgotten it.

"What made it keep beating?" Anaid asked suddenly. It distracted Anderson from his dilemma.

"Conviction," he said after a moment. "Faith."

"Things the first agent had..." Anaid mused. "I wonder..."

"What...?"

"If Selkah knows we're after the heart, he might be trying to make a new one..." She shifted to sit on the branch with her legs dangling.

"Make a... new heart?" Anderson had no idea who Selkah was, but the mention of the heart pulled him away.

"He's got a faithful, and the Table... If she dies rather than give in, she'll be a martyr, right? Then all he has to do is rip out her heart and keep it beating."

"That isn't possible! It would take a true miracle-"

"What makes you think Selkah won't get one?" Anderson had to sputter a bit.

"You are not understanding the divine power involved," he said when he trusted himself to speak.

"I don't know divine from doughnut," Anaid sighed. "But the power will be easy enough to come by." He gave her a strange look. "What? You don't think the other side has relics of its own? Dark and evil items kept under lock and key to use against the servants of God?"

"You would know," he muttered.

"You SHOULD," she snapped back. "It's your mission in life, after all."

"What would you know about that?"

"What Seras told me."

"What would a demon know about miracles?"

"What would a priest know about demons?"

"Is this how you provoked Heinkel??"

"I told her to shut up as soon as I felt him getting close, but there was no stopping her." She looked him over. "I can still get the relic back to you. Will you follow me, holy man?"

"Paladin," he corrected. After a moment, the bayonets were tucked away. "And for now, I will."

Anaid looked at him carefully. He still smelled irate and his body language was tense with potential violence, but his eyes were rational and his hackles were no longer bristling. So, she jumped down to land just out of his reach in case close quarters set him off again. His jaw tightened a bit, but his hands stayed empty, so she turned her back on him and started off again. After a moment, he hurried after.

They went into the ruins, winding their way through. Once they got inside, the state of the walls improved. They deeper they went, the better shape everything was.

"Here we are," Anaid said, coming to a hearth. She grew her claws out, which made the bayonets re-appear. Ignoring him and the blades, she sank down and dug her fingers into the seams of stone around the hearthstone. Still tempted to stab her, he watched her tug at it. It was moving, but very slowly.

"Do you need help?" he asked finally.

"Not really," she grunted. "This is better than when it was hot from the fire all the time." She managed to get a hand underneath and hefted the slab over just an inch to brace it on the next stone. After that, it slid comparitively easy to the side. More stairs, Anderson thought, peering down into the opening.

"Can you see in the dark?" Anaid asked.

"I'm not a freak," he said stiffly.

"If you can't," she went on as if he hadn't spoken. "You'd best wait here until I get it and bring it back out. So. Can you see in the dark, or will you be guarding the door?"

He considered a moment. He could see in the dark fairly well, though not in pitch darkness. Most vampires couldn't either. All those candlelit lairs and moonlit graveyards weren't just for affect. The more powerful ones could detect movement, hear heartbeats, smell blood, and that sort of thing, but very few could truly see in pitch darkness. Probably even Alucard had to go by feel more that true sight in the deepest pits of wherever he slept. The pit facing Anderson now was plenty deep and dark.

"How far is it?" he asked, hating to admit any weakness.

"About half a mile," she said. "Two levels down, and across the long walk."

The thought of wandering blind through that many stairs and corridors wasn't a nice one. He would have to trust the werewolf not to abandon him, or lead him into a deathtrap, and that there would be nothing else trying to grab him from behind. He mulled it over for another moment, then grouchily leaned against the wall. Anaid nodded and hopped down. She was gone from sight in a heartbeat.

Selkah could hear them moving, but it wasn't nearly as interesting as the things hidden away in Heinkel. He was pleasantly surprised at the pain and horror he'd brought to the surface. Selkah knew pain well enough to no longer be shocked by it. It did amuse and entertain him to find such unexpected levels of it in her. There was pain in Heinkel that she didn't even remember. The Song of the Depths sent it pouring out of her.

_There were dimly lit memories of a man that she thought was... an uncle? Grandfather, maybe? _ The house was all empty. _There was gunfire and her hand felt hot. __**No.**__ Something was dripping and the splashes only sounded like gunfire. _"Are you sure?" came a tiny whisper. _She could hear the voice of God. _The Song wouldn't stop.

_He was shorter than her, which annoyed him into wearing high heeled shoes that clicked on endless tile floors._ She ran to keep up with someone in black. No **one** ever waited for her. _"Are you willing to give this of yourself?" the voice asked. What else did she have to give? _Cold fingers reaching into her head. _It filled all the cracks with rage. _It threw open doors that had been locked and bricked over for years.

_There was a zipping sound as the drill made a hole in the bone, just big enough for a syringe to fit through_. Rows of white doors with black numbers_. She was finally special._ Her veins stung with the weight of the fluids injected. _Chosen by angels, the pain was a test. _It let things out that she had idea were parts of herself.

_The uncle/grandfather had a part like a straight line drawn on his head. The overhead lights made him look as colorless as the drab walls around him._ They **wanted** her. _Her eyes throbbed at even the weakest light. They had to make her special tinted glasses. _It was like drowning in clouds of burning poison. _The darkness began to flee from her. It was afraid. _She was a monster.

_Her older brother (or father? Maybe an early boyfriend?) had gone away. He waved goodbye from the train._ Yellow flowers were blooming. It didn't change that she was left behind._ There was a job she was meant to do. _It prickled down in the cracks of her fingertops, under the nails, in her knuckle joints. _ There would be no more hiding. Not for __**her**__, or for those in her way. _There was only one thing to do, only one way out.

_**She **__realized he hated her when he took such a long time screwing the needles through her bones. He was usually much more efficient._ The woman at the window wouldn't even turn around to say goodbye. _There were eyes she couldn't see clearly, because light reflected off the glasses_. Fish hooks, and wasp stings, that's what they had stuffed her skin with. _It __**didn't**__ matter. Nothing from 'before' mattered. _She screamed her defiance and the world came back into focus.

_He didn't even bother using the drill. _ Things would be all right again, after everyone was home. _The sweet face caught on fire and the blade appeared __**like **__the baring of teeth. _It felt like spiderbites, inside and out, burning, stinging, itching, swelling, hurting all through her body. _She had transcended on wings of blood. _Power leaked through her paralysis.

_It burned all up her spine._ _He just smiled at her_. The house stayed empty, someone broke the front windows. _Cold, sharp metal between her bones._Then, nothing but a dead emptiness. _She had been made pure. _Her teeth bared and tears filled her eyes.

_It marched through her nerve endings like iron ants, heated white_. The woman got a letter that made her scream and throw it in the fire. That meant no dinner. _The guns sent an ache all the way to her shoulder when she fired __**them**__. She couldn't be ignored now._ Until the cold lights were all turned on again and she could see the mess they had made of her. _This was as she was meant to be. _ It was no longer the grandfather/uncle/doctor watching her. **It** was something much bigger.

_That thumping sound __**was**__ her own body, flopping like a fish on the table_. The brother/father/first love died somewhere far away. Somewhere hot. _The sweet, burning eyes behind the blade went wide as bullets punched through the black clothing._ "God willing," the old man said. "You will live. His enemies will die." _She was the bullet, the blade, the knotted noose. _ "That's perfect," the stranger purred.

_That neverending noise that rang in her ears went away after her throat began to bleed._ There had to be a way away. _"__**Enough**__!" someone roared. The accent was heavy, but the smell was nice. "You're as bad as the children!" _Dressed in black herself now, **to** hide the scars. _There was nothing left to __**be**__ afraid of. _She sank her teeth into him, heard his laughter bubble up like the blood.

_She'd screamed her throat raw without even knowing it._ Even dying was a way out. That was **an** escape all it's own, and anything was better than being hungry. _She'd never had a friend before._ They told her the scars were gone, but she could still see them. _The __**angel**__s would recognize her, even if she never made it to Heaven. _He sprang away and she ran after.

_The straps left sore marks on her arms and legs._ "Give me that one," the man said, pointing to her. He had money. _The stab hurt, but she pretended it didn't. _After some time, she forgot about it. _She had the approval __**of**__ the Allmighty, even if it meant sacrificing her own soul, His will would be done by her hands. _She was following, despite pain and **darkness**.

_"Same time next week?" he asked, still smiling, __**and**__ he turned off the __**light**_. She left on the train andwaved, because that's what you did, even if you knew you would die before you came back. _It was a weird friendship, but better than nothing. _After all, everyone else had forgotten her long before. _"Amen!" someone cried, and her own voice joined it. _She burst into the light and found the sun setting.

Golden-red light spilled around empty windows in ornate patches on the old walls. Startled by her sudden appearance, Anderson was on his feet again, blade in each hand.

Finally! he thought, but then he recognized Heinkel. She was a mess, her glasses long since broken in her struggles. Her black clothing didn't show the bloodstains, but it was tattered in enough places to show them on her skin. He could see tell by the way that one arm hung that it was broken. She was gasping for breath, so she was still alive.

"Heinkel!" he shouted. She stared at him, wild-eyed as a deer, then seemed to realize who he was. She looked around for Selkah, but there was only Anderson standing by the empty hearth. The setting sun lit him up in fiery light that stung her eyes.

"Alexander," she said, and that surprised him. She'd never called him by his first name before. She'd always been very respectful.

"You have to kill me," she said, staggering toward him. "You can't let me become this..."

"What's happened to you?" he asked.

"He bit me," she said, and her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them back as she raised the unbroken arm. "He bit me and everything changed. He brought it out of me. I'm different and I'm going to get worse."

There were definite fang marks on her wrist, not the neat punctures of a vampire bite. It looked, he realized with a sinking feeling, much like the bite on his own shoulder. She choked on a sob.

"You have to," she said. "Before any one sees. Before it happens."

The bottom had fallen out of his stomach. He'd been bitten too. He'd been bitten first. Who would there be for him to beg for death from? Who would even be capable of killing him? Was it a worse sin to become a creature or to take one's own life? How long would he have until he had to make that decision?

"Alexander?" she sounded uncertain now. She had never known him to hesitate before. "Paladin? Please..."

"There's still time." He found his voice finally. It had been days and days for him already. He tucked one blade away, but kept the other out. He held the empty hand out to her. "Come to me. I'll take you home."

"Home's gone!" Her eyes were on the remaining bayonet. "I'm not going back there! I won't be what I was. You have to promise you will kill me."

"Heinkel!" he barked and she cringed. He forced his voice to soften. "Take my hand. I'll take care of you. It's a fresh bite. Maybe we can get you back the way you were before."

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I WAS BEFORE!!" she exploded. "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT TOOK TO BECOME **THAT**!! I CAN'T DO THAT TWICE!! I WON'T!!" She sank her fingernails into her face and ripped downwards.

"Heinkel!" He lunged to grab her arm before she could do even more damage to herself. She twisted against him, and grabbed the bayonet blade with her broken arm.

"I will _**never**_ be as I was," she hissed at him, and yanked the blade into her own chest. He jerked back in time to keep it from being a fatal stab. As it was, more blood soaked her clothes and she collapsed. He backed away out of her reach and she wept on the floor. She had never been a weak or emotional person, unless you counted righteous anger. It was bizarre and terrible to see her reduced to tears and blood. His instincts were in a tangle.

On the one hand, if she was tainted as she said, then she was both right and brave to insist on her own death. On the other, she was traumatized and perhaps driven mad by whatever had happened to her. Perhaps the creature that had done this wanted her to be killed by her own as an ironic twist of cruelty. And there was Anaid's notion. If he killed Heinkel, she might become the martyr needed to recreate the relic. He wasn't used to having to think so much, weigh so many options. The Will of God had always been a straight and uncomplicated law.

From the pit behind him, came a sudden scream of pain and terror. It was Anaid. The sound froze him in his tracks. Evil might damage a soldier of light like Heinkel, but what could make a shape-shifting monster shriek like an electrocuted cat? Even Heinkel stopped. The scream cut off just as suddenly and the sound of painful collision could be heard. Anaid's voice rose again, still pained and frightened.

"Run!!" she screamed. "Run, run, run, run, run, RUN!!!"

Anderson grabbed Heinkel. She squeaked with pain as he set her over his shoulder. He could hear scrabbling hands and feet approaching from the pit. He turned and sprinted back the way they had come. Behind him, Anaid burst into view. Heinkel gasped at the sight of her, so Anderson looked over his shoulder. Anaid was as wide-eyed as Heinkel had been, but a deeper horror twisted her face. She was soaked in blood from her chin to her knees. She had her left hand clutched to her chest. The right arm was curled protectively around something as she tore after them. She was still roaring for them to run.

So they did. The sun was almost gone, but they ran through fields of stone and trees. When night fell, they ran in the dark. Anderson didn't know the way anymore, but he went on until even his regenerating strength started to flag. He stopped and Anaid ran into his back, hard enough to jostle Heinkel. She bounced off and fell down to wheeze for breath. Anderson set Heinkel down. The agent hadn't made a sound since they left, but she was trembling.

"It's him!" Anaid gasped. "It's him, it's him, it's him, it's him, it can't be him!" She rolled on her side to curl around her injuries. Her voice rose in a howl. "God, WHY???"

"QUIET." Anderson snapped, and she went as silent as Heinkel. The paladin stood to his full height and stretched, cracking his neck and popping the shoulder Heinkel had been on. He had no idea where they were when he looked around. There were some trees and the distant light of civilization off over the hills. He cast his paper wards all around, pinning them to trees and to the ground, making his own little patch of holy ground. That done, he turned back to the women.

"What happened?" he asked Anaid. She didn't answer, so he kicked her over on to her back. He couldn't see a single injury, but blood was pouring freely down her belly. After a moment, he used the bayonet to slit her shirt open. Heinkel inhaled as she recognized the same scar over Anaid's heart that had been on Selkah's. But Anaid's was open. Her blood gushed out of it, pumping her life out over her legs.

"Here," she untangled her right arm to hand Anderson a bundle. It was her uniform jacket, wadded around something. When his hand closed around it, he felt a pulse throb inside it. The Morse Heart.

"Traitor," she gasped. "Not liar." She clamped both hands over her Mark and curled up tight again.

Meanwhile, Heinkel had gotten up and wandered away. She half-expected the ward to stop her, but she passed without any pain. She had a dim idea of finding a steep enough cliff to fall off of. Perhaps whatever had attacked the Hellsing agent would catch up and kill her. When a hand fell on her shoulder, she stopped and raised her chin, unconsciously baring her throat.

"What. Are you doing?" Anderson's voice was squeezed out through his clenched teeth. "I can not protect you if I don't know where you are."

"You can't protect me," she said, meeting his eyes. "All you can do is end it."

"I was bitten too," he said, after some hesitation. "And I haven't changed."

"You're a Regenerator," she said. "I'm not." That much was true. He had no idea what would comfort her, or how true it would be if he could think of something.

"I won't leave you alone," he said finally. "If there is no hope, I will kill you. I will promise that." He put an arm around her, and even though it hurt her dislocated shoulder, she leaned into him.

"What if I change?" she asked, and she sounded like a child. It interrupted the thought that was asking him that very same question.

"Depends." he said. "On what you change into." It occurred to him that a changed Heinkel would be the only thing strong enough to kill him when _he_ changed. "You're not alone," he said again, steering her back to the warded area. When they got there, Anaid was gone.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

The blood trail was easy enough to follow. Anaid hadn't gotten far. She dragged herself to a spot clear enough to hold a patch of moonlight and lay there. Anderson found her and watched from the edge of the clearing. A human bleeding that way would've been dead already. Anaid didn't look that far off. She was gulping for air as her blood gushed out.

The merciful thing might be to kill her outright, Anderson thought. Better she die at my hands than by evil magic. He was feeling a little kinder now that he had the relic back. The creature had kept her word, so had at least earned a gentle death.

Then again, it would be informative to find out what had been able to hurt her this way, especially if it could be used against the other werewolf, the one that had attacked Heinkel. There was one other thing that was bothering him, too.

"I would not have thought a heathen creature with no ties to church or humanity would call on God." He hadn't really meant to talk to her about it, especially in the state she was in.

"We don't often call on anyone," Selkah said. Anderson's blades were instantly in his hands. Selkah was far enough out of the circle of light that he was only an outline with glowing eyes. "But if we must," he went on. "Who better to call on?"

Anaid gasped and tried to get up. She made it to knees and elbows before collapsing again.

"Your handiwork?" Anderson asked. He gestured toward Anaid without looking away from Selkah. The massive shadow shook its head.

"My master's," said Selkah. "Once hers." He looked back at Anaid. "This is the traitor's death, the great shame of the moon's children."

"You've come to finish her off then."

"I've come to keep you from that task."

"...what?"

"Stay out of the moonlight, holy man. And so will I."

It made no sense. The creatures were all insane. Maybe it was the moon. Moon madness. Lunatics.

"You're mad!" he said aloud.

"Yes." It was the most most unsatisfying answer the creature could've given.

"It's a slow death you want for your kin then?" Anderson said. He was losing the war with his control. "Or do you mean to replace her with Heinkel?"

"Who?" Selkah had the nerve to look puzzled. Anderson's grip on the hilts tightened.

"Ohh, you mean her." He tossed his head back toward the warded area. "She's got the fire, holy man. There's enough strength in her to become stronger, but there's something she's afraid of."

"Don't flatter yourself, monster. She's a warrior. She fears only God, and carries the strength that only being human can give."

"So much talk about strength," the big werewolf chuckled. "When the truth is that there's nothing more human than weakness."

He lunged across the clearing, five blades streaking like comets ahead of him. Selkah went sideways, rolling snake-like underneath them. Priest and werewolf collided almost chest to chest. Anaid tried to get up and made it to her knees. She screamed a gurgling "Stop!" at them, but ended up gasping up a bubble of blood and collapsing again.

Neither Anderson or Selkah knew which of them she had called to, and it didn't matter. Anderson kept stabbing and slashing. Selkah wasn't using his claws. He was fast enough that he could stay inches away and keep up the dance of dodge and block. It was infuriating to have him so close and not be able to hurt him. From the way he was grinning, Selkah knew that.

Every strike seemed to just miss him. He would feint back as if he would attack, but only hard enough to touch. Instead of claws, Anderson would feel fingertips poke him. The paladin only dimly registered pain when he was in a battle craze, but the absence of it wasn't any better. He left an opening and felt another tap. The only way it could've been more playful would have been if Selkah called "Tag!" each time.

Finally, Anderson turned quickly enough to drive a bayonet into Selkah's chest. He felt the muscle wall give and the grate of the blade against a rib. Exultant, the paladin sent the blade in his other hand into Selkah's thigh. With that hand free, he doubled his grip on the first bayonet and twisted it, driving it deeper and upwards to pierce the heart. Internal organs were stabbed through easily in a hot gush until the blade jerked as it drove into the inside of Selkah's shoulder blade. The werewolf's smirk didn't even falter. He threw himself forward in a head butt that smashed Anderson's glasses and broke his nose.

The paladin staggered, more from the impact than the pain. He came back up, fist first, connecting with Selkah's jaw. He heard the click of the joint rattling, but Selkah still seemed unfazed. Hitting him was like punching a rock. There was no sign of that he could be hurt or that there was any give to him at all. With a roar of rage that a werewolf could be proud of, Anderson grabbed the bayonet in Selkah's leg and slashed it free. The blade tore through most of Selkah's thigh, including the femoral artery that bled spectacularly for a moment. By the time it healed, Anderson's nose was back to normal too.

Anderson took a step back and a page of almost-golden parchment appeared in his hand. The first time he had fought this creature, the wards had chased it off. Selkah's eyes did go immediately to the ornate type that spelled itself out on the paper. Anderson flung it at him and then followed it with the bayonet, pinning the page to his chest alongside the first blade.

The sound Selkah made had the whole landscape trembling. Calling it a scream didn't do it any justice at all. It even cut through Anderson's berserker joy like a splash of cold water in his stomach. His bared-tooth rictus of bloodlust pulled sideways into a more uncertain expression. Selkah exploded into a larger, more frenzied shape, becoming a wolf-beast the size of a Clydesdale. The paper pinned to him burst into flame. The sound of pain didn't stop, but it changed pitch with his vocal cords. The creature lunged at Anderson, all claws and fangs and the smell of burning.

Heinkel had left the warded circle when she heard the fight. She saw Anderson and the creature hard at battle through the trees. The sight of the were-beast gave her the same prickle of cold the howl had given Anderson. _That's what I'm going to be,_ she thought. _Only blonder. Maybe. _She imagined for a heartbeat that it was her Anderson was fighting. She didn't imagine she would be able to kill him. Still it was disheartening to see that he hadn't been able to kill the thing quickly.

She could see fine in the weak moonlight. It was the light that she had to squint into. The brightest spot was the one Anaid was laying in. Heinkel walked over to the stricken Hellsing agent and knelt beside her. Anaid had rolled over to her back to let the moon shine on her chest. The hole was bleeding faster than she could regenerate. After a moment, Heinkel pulled the two halves of the slit shirt to cover anything indecent.

"He knew better than to trust you people," she said, turning to look at the fight going on in the trees. "He came to rescue me, even against our chief's orders. I suppose I'm luckier than you. Who at Hellsing will come for you?"

The light of the moon went out. Blackness spread under the trees, thick and cold. Anaid stirred as it fell over her. Her eyes opened and found Heinkel's.

"Run," she whispered.


	23. Chapter 23

23

Heinkel stared into the dying agent's colorless eyes and saw herself reflected back. Her reflection looked frightened. _And I'm not_, she realized. _Whatever's coming can only kill me. It will save Anderson the trouble._

Her last sentence echoed through the eerie calm in her mind. _Save Anderson..._ Whatever the dark was, it might hurt him. Anaid was clearly done for. Heinkel looked around for the paladin again and saw one of his lanky arms lying in the underbrush. She swore under her breath, and fear did touch her then.

Just because she had to die was no reason he had to. She looked again at Anaid, and then limped as quickly as she could go from the approaching blackness to find Anderson. She could hear the fight clearly and headed towards it. Branches whipped at her and she tripped painfully once.

She was hit hard by a flung body and sent reeling back. Anderson's heavy frame smashed her to the ground. Pain made even her thoughts stagger as the impact wrenched her shoulder and back again. Anderson's stump was no longer bleeding, but the new arm hadn't begun to grow back. He was almost unrecognizable under the blood. His remaining arm was still flinging bayonets and blessings.

"You have to go!" Heinkel screamed. "Something worse is coming!" She couldn't hear her own voice over the bellows of the paladin and the monster. They clashed again, the werewolf lunging out of the woods. The one ward had burned itself into Selkah's chest. The spot still smoked next to his scar. Claws sank into what was left of Anderson's shoulder and the massive, wolfish head sprang forward to bite down on his head. Pinned beneath both warriors, Heinkel screamed for the paladin, who made no sound.

They rolled off of her, and she tried to pull herself back up. Her slashed leg buckled. She had forgotten how badly she had been hurt earlier, but it had caught up to her. Anderson and Selkah were fighting their way back toward the clearing. Heinkel could see the wave of unnatural dark reaching out for the two of them. She couldn't run anymore. Her whole body hurt. There was no way she could fight, even if she had a weapon. She looked down at the stab in her chest. She wondered how trying to kill herself would reflect on her soul later. _Because I'm not surviving this._

Behind her, paladin and werewolf both went almost-quiet as they closed. Selkah had buried his teeth in Anderson's remaining shoulder. Anderson was crushed under the creature, but was probably biting back. He never gave up. Heinkel took a breath. She could be that brave. Once.

One of Anderson's blades was stuck in the ground. Her paralyzed arm was still useless, so she forced the dislocated one to grab the hilt. She almost expected the blessings on it to hurt her, but they didn't. She pulled it free and walked out to meet the dark.

Selkah's claws sank into Anderson's back, stabbing through muscle and around bones to burst out of his chest. The weight of the giant werewolf drove him down on his stomach. Something squirmed feebly under him, and he tried to focus on what he had landed on. It was Anaid, too weak to struggle. His blood splattered over the mess of her own.

_I should've killed her when I had the chance, _he thought suddenly. _Spared her this._ Then it occurred to him that Selkah meant to feed him to her. Or at least to have her bite him again. It takes more than one bite, Selkah had said. If she died before she finished the job, there would be no new werewolf to take her place.

That outrage fueled another vicious struggle. He threw his remaining elbow back and felt it connect. Twisting against the claws in his ribs hurt, but it let him heave a kick at the beast's side. A bone gave there, but Selkah only ground him back down against Anaid. The werewolf shifted to his human form, but kept his claws, keeping Anderson skewered. The crushing weight diminished slightly, and then Selkah's bloodied, hairy head appeared at his shoulder.

"There's a way out," the creature whispered. "For all of us." He grabbed Anaid's hand and pulled it around so Anderson could see the palm. Branded or scarred or tattooed in the flesh were faint symbols and fainter words. "Say the words, holy man, and free us all."

Anderson tried to fight again. He could hear the werewolf panting and took hope that he could wear the beast down. It was still insanely strong and crushed him down once more on Anaid's body. She was still alive. She was looking past Anderson, trying to see Selkah. Her arm was bent at a painful angle, but she was too far gone to even wince at that. So much of his blood had been poured out over her, Anderson couldn't tell if the Mark was still bleeding her dry anymore.

"My Master reaches out his hand," Selkah whispered. "But it's not too late." Selkah tore his claws out suddenly, splashing more blood between Anderson and Anaid. The clawed hand was slick with warm blood to the elbow and it clamped down on Anderson's jaw, pulling his head to the side.

Heinkel was in sight, slashing uselessly at the tendrils of darkness around her. It wasn't working. She might as well have tried to fight a shadow. The tendrils roamed lightly over her like groping hands. One had her by the throat. She was backed up against a tree, face drawn from the pain of swinging a bayonet with a broken arm. She was still fighting, but visibly growing weaker.

"Say the words," Selkah growled again. "And I will tell you how to save the girl." Anderson felt the hole in his chest closing up.

"You," he gasped around the blood. "Wouldn't be bargaining if you thought you could win." Selkah laughed, a short, breathless chuckle. Then his shaggy jaw nestled against Anderson's ear again.

"Trying to win what?" his voice fell to a whisper. "I lost long ago... I wouldn't be as I am if I hadn't. I don't know the words, holy man. One of you must say them for me."

The grip holding his head to see Heinkel pulled it back to see Anaid's palm. Anderson hesitated. Out of his line if sight, he heard a soft sound from Heinkel. She wasn't resigned enough to her fate to go quietly. The dark was coming closer. And behind it came a presence.

"If you had the chance to save your packmate and turned away," Selkah hissed, suddenly urgent. "Her death will be on _your_ conscience. And she'll know before she dies that you could've saved her, but chose your own battle over her soul. She'll know, holy man, because _**I **_will tell her."

Torn, Anderson refocused on the hand. Anaid's eyes were on him now. She murmered something, but it wasn't a language he knew. Selkah answered in the same tongue and Anaid's eyes closed. Another muffled sob came from Heinkel. The words weren't a language he understood either, but he could read them. Fine. He would do it to buy enough time for Heinkel to get away, no matter how it galled him.

So, he took a breath and begin to sound out the words. It got easier as he went and his own wounds began to close. Underneath him, Anaid had gone still. The grip holding him began to tremble.

They were making him part of some heathen ritual. He spit out the last word with all the fury he could muster. Anaid's opened, hard and bright, and sucked in a long, painful breath. Selkah grabbed Anderson and sprang away. He snatched Heinkel up and was gone, leaving Anaid alone in the patch of moonlight. She tried to sit up and couldn't, but looked down at her Mark. It had closed. Torn between anger and relief, she settled back down. As the darkness closed around her, her grin came back.


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

"Will she change?"

It was a quiet question, asked in the dark. Wherever Selkah had taken them, Anderson couldn't see much of it. It smelled like stone and earth, and the occasional beam of moonlight would show only vague shapes in the gloom.

He had been dropped unceremoniously to the ground, and Heinkel was dropped in his lap. She was contorted in pain and shaking from a chill had to have come from the darkness touching her. Anderson had set her down and covered her in what was left of his long coat. The still-beating Martyr's Heart was audible from the bundle. He could feel his arm growing back slowly.

"She was changed long ago," Selkah's voice rumbled out of the dark. Anderson couldn't see him until he moved. "I sang it out of her. She had forgotten it." Selkah looked sideways at Anderson, eyes narrowing as his mouth curled upwards. "What could I sing from **you**, I wonder?"

"You said," Anderson swallowed hard. "That I could save her."

"You can," Selkah's amber-gold eyes were hard to look away from. "But it may not be the way you meant to." Outrage roared to life in Anderson's blood again. Those eyes kept it from acting.

"She'll never be the same," said the werewolf. He almost sounded apologetic, but that was probably the hypnotic affect of eyes and voice. "And neither will you. But yes. Will you do this for her?"

"Do what?" Anderson asked, but now his own eyes were on Heinkel, and resignation had crept into the anger in his voice. He had come too far to turn squeamish now. The paladin wasn't one to hold back, even if it meant his own suffering.

"Give in," Selkah's voice had dropped back to his shadowy whisper. "_Lose_. Give up the sacrifice of your own life." Anderson drew breath to speak, and Selkah cut him off.

"You had planned to give yourself to a higher cause, a glorious battle against a worthy foe. Can you let that go, and instead sacrifice yourself for something small and frightened with no one to see, that many will condemn, for no glory or renown?"

As the words sank in, Anderson found himself silent. A hole had opened up in the bottom of his mouth that wouldn't let him speak. He wanted to say something about how any sacrifice for the benefit of another was a worthy one, but he was having trouble spitting it out. The werewolf understood too well. Anderson had trained himself to fight against the evils of the undead, heathen heretics, Protestants, and anything else that stood in the way of the Will of the Allmighty God and the Holy Church. He had suffered before, but had always had that. He had always been able to cling to the pride that he was special and meant for a final battle somewhere. He was shocked to realize how hard it was to imagine losing that.

He glanced up to see if Selkah was enjoying watching the struggle. If the creature had shown any signs of amusement, they would've had to fight again. Selkah wasn't even looking at him anymore. The golden eyes were on Heinkel. She was still trembling too hard to be completely unconscious. One of Selkah's large, clawed fingers flicked out and brushed some of her hair back from her face.

"Don't touch her," Anderson suddenly heard himself growl. Selkah ignored him.

"We give ourselves to be broken in service to the whims of our masters," he said. Anderson wasn't sure whether the werewolf was speaking to him or Heinkel until the gold eyes fell on him again. "Have you made a decision?"

It was a long moment before Anderson could speak. He almost fidgeted. He had to consciously stop his feet from shuffling. He desperately felt around his own emotions for the anger. Any anger. Anger at Maxwell for sending Heinkel instead of him. Anger at Hellsing for being on the other side of this whole situation. Anger at himself for hesitating. Anger at himself for not fighting, but bargaining. Bargaining! With an unholy creature that had caused the suffering it was offering to help him put right. The familiar burn of righteousness began to blur the edges of his vision. Selkah's form fell into sharp focus. The claw stroked down Heinkel's neck and she jerked a little.

The bayonet was through Selkah's back and through his heart in the next instant. Anderson sank his fingers into the creature's nearest eye, intending to rip it from the socket. The hot gush of blood went hotter, and the flesh he was tearing at flowed under his fingers and reformed. Selkah was the wolf again. His sheer size pulled him from Anderson's grip and he lunged to sink his teeth into the same shoulder Anaid had bitten. Anaid's fangs had been in a human jaw. They had gone through cloth and skin and muscle. Selkah's crunched through bones. Anderson's shoulder blade was ground between teeth. He could feel muscles pulled free from his chest. The werewolf's lower incisors grated under his ribs.

They fought fiercely for a moment. Selkah's bite tightened and then he slung his huge head to the side, shaking Anderson like a rag. Anderson's neck snapped against the furred skull and in the following moment of paralysis, Selkah pinned him down again. It only took a moment for his spinal cord to mend itself, but then Selkah bit him again. This bite was a deliberate one. Anderson felt the same venom-like heat spread from it that he had when Anaid had bitten him. He screamed a wordless denial and punched upwards. His fist hit the Mark scar. He clawed at it, hoping that it would hurt the creature somehow.

Selkah's change in size hadn't dislodged the bayonet, but it had moved the tip back farther into his body. Anderson tried to grab the hilt to stab again, but it was out of his reach now. He could feel the heat spread up his neck and into his head. His vision glazed over and his head spun, turning his stomach. When it cleared, Selkah's face was looking at him. It was blood-spattered, but human again. He had pulled the bayonet out and it lay within reach. Selkah's expression was that of someone waiting patiently for an answer.

"Do you know..." Anderson gasped. "What you're asking of me?"

"I do," Selkah's voice was soft and very nearly gentle. "It's a basic rule of ethical conduct, holy man, to never ask anything of anyone that you haven't suffered and understood yourself. I was forced to give up my own destiny long before any of you people were born, and for a much more selfish reason. You're getting the chance to save your packmate. It was all I could do to save myself while mine died."

"You intend to replace them," Anderson felt the splinters of bone in his shoulder pull back together into a solid scapula. His voice became clearer as the holes in his throat stopped bleeding. "With more monsters." Selkah chuckled. Their voices seemed to wake Heinkel and she made a noise.

"Alexander?" she sounded groggy. She turned to see him and a flicker of relief touched her face. "You're safe." Before he could answer, Selkah leaned into sight. Anderson's blood still ran off his chin.

"No," he said, and chuckled when she blanched at the sight of him.

"Leave her alone," Anderson pulled himself in between them to block the sight of each other. "You said..." He grimaced, hating being in such a position of weakness that he had to rely on a monster to keep its word. "That you knew how to save her."

"Your packmate," Selkah said slowly. "May not be human enough to become one of us." It took a few heartbeats for that to sink in, and when it did, Anderson's grimace fell into a snarl.

"Liar," he growled.

"I don't lie," Selkah said simply. "I told you that I sang it out of her." He turned to look at Heinkel again. "Tell him, sweetness. Tell him what you told me." She crumpled, pulling tighter into the fetal position.

"I can't, " she whispered.

"You thought you could die and no one would know," Selkah said. "My bite isn't what had you so upset. Someone had beaten me to it."

"...Heinkel...?" Anderson asked. It wasn't what the werewolf was saying, but Heinkel's reaction that was starting to convince him. She hid her face with her hands.

"There's no shame in change," Selkah said, when neither of them spoke.

"Only in a change for the worse." Her voice was muffled by her hands.

"Tell him," came the rumbling purr again. "Who you belong to."

"She is a servant of God!" Anderson flared back.

"Oh yes. Bought and paid for." Selkah eyes widened dramatically, then settled into his usual hooded look of amusement. "But I meant _before_ that..." He tilted his head expectantly, and with no where else to look to, Anderson turned to Heinkel. She pulled her hands down to press her knuckles against her mouth.

"They..." she began. "They made me..."

"Made you do what?"

"No... They made ME. I was... someone else."

"Innocence stolen," Selkah sighed. "It's a story that was old even in my time. A child, bought from her mother, taken away, and her childhood removed."

"Who?" Anderson's voice was as much of a growl as Selkah's.

"I'm not supposed to remember," Heinkel moaned, covering her face again. "I think... he knew my mother. He bought me. They did something to me. It hurt. A man from the Church came and picked me from the others. There was an agreement between the doctors and the Church. I was glad to be chosen. Glad to be away. To go somewhere clean. To be something else." Her voice trailed off and when it came back, there were tears behind it.

"But they did it wrong. I wasn't what they wanted." She gulped audibly and was quiet just long enough to get hold of herself. "Whatever they did, it damaged my eyes. I aged too fast and then stopped. They thought I might be made into a Regenerator, but whatever had been done before made it impossible for that treatment to work. I'm not... right. I don't think I ever will be again."

"What…" Anderson's head spun again. "What did they want you to be? If, if not a Regenerator…?"

"I wouldn't have taken such an interest in her if I hadn't smelled something familiar," Selkah sighed happily. "I've suffered a vampire's tampering long enough to recognize the particular smell of the living tainted by the dead."

"Vampire…." Anderson echoed. If he had been a cat, he would've bristled. "They were trying to make you a vampire?"

"To make me like one," Heinkel sobbed. "Stronger and longer-lived, with keener senses. It didn't work. I aged too fast and my eyes were heightened so much that almost any light hurts them. They had to do more treatments to stop it. I lived, but I was useless to them. I had forgotten it. They made me forget it. And now…"

"The way out need only be taken," Selkah said.

"Explain that." Anderson was looking at Heinkel. She couldn't meet his eyes.

"I know a thing or two about being changed," Selkah stood up to his full height. "You lose what you were, but you gain what you become. Both of you will change. So will I. It may destroy me. It won't be you that destroys me," he added as Anderson also rose to his feet. "But you may get to see it."

"Changed into what?" Anderson hissed. They locked eyes, green against gold. Selkah grinned, a slice of teeth opening in his blood-encrusted face.

"Me," he said, and then his voice rose in a howl that turned into a Song, drowning out Anderson's roar.


	25. Chapter 25

25

Anaid heard the Song in the distance and shivered. The seeking blackness lapped around her like water, tracing sigils of command on her skin.

_That won't work_, she thought. It didn't respond to that, but a redness began to spread under the black.

"You've done your part then, moonchild" Alucard's whisper snaked across the distance.

"Your hidden Master stirs?"

"Indeed, Lord," she said. Even her mental voice sounded frail.

"I am coming."

"He'll send his soldiers first. He himself, will be at the source."

"And which of us will you side with?"

"The worthiest of you will win. If I live to see it, I'll decide then."

"**Will** you live?" he asked, sounding too amused to be concerned.

"I may," she said.

Alucard arrived out of the shadows with only the sigh of displaced air fluttering his coat tails. The darkness that had flowed through the woods was suddenly pulled back as it sensed him. It had been Bastion's eyes in the lands around his castle, and now it had seen all it needed to. Alucard opened up all his senses. He could feel the weak throb of Anaid's life somewhere in the woods. She had used up most of her strength speaking to him.

Ahead of him, behind miles of forest and walls of stone, sat something else. It was definitely another vampire, old and powerful, and surrounded by an aura of dark swirling magic that almost obscured Alucard's image of him. It was like a steady red light from the inside of a black whirlpool.

From that whirlpool, a brighter thread separated itself and came pouring out. It snaked from the source, going faster and getting larger as it tore through the forest towards Alucard. It divided in two, gold and silver eyes opening along each side. Alucard felt them long before they came into sight.

They swirled around him, a ghostly river of teeth and claws. Whatever Bastion had done to the pack of werewolves under his command had twisted them. Their shapeshifting had been forced to obscene lengths, their flesh and bone flowing like melted wax. When they had died, he had fed their blood to the Table, and now the ghost pack served him too. They couldn't separate into individuals anymore. They tried, but there was always too many heads and legs and eyes. Not that it mattered to Alucard. It was no more horrific than his hellhounds, except that there were more.

They were cold, and while they seemed to be intangible, their teeth and claws tore at him. He felt chunks of his coat and body ripped away. Like a cyclone of cold glass, they spun around him, tearing him open, drawing blood with every touch, whipping his black vapor to a mist. Alucard's face split into a grin, even as a dozens of tears opened in his body. He spread out his arms, pantomiming crucifixion and throwing his head back to let the moon reflect in his eyes before a whirlwind of claws tore them out of his skull. What had been in the shape of a man was dissolved into a red and black puddle. The shreds of bone and hair and fabric began to melt into it.

The spectral werewolves settled down, still circling, but dividing as much as they could into seven different creatures. However many werewolves there had been in the beginning, there was no telling. Each creature was now a cluster of merged anatomy. They bristled with heads and paws, gleamed with eyes and fangs, shifted and realigned constantly to compensate for their limbs.

"Gone/Over." hissed one. The words came in unison from two mouths on the same breath.

"Over/Done/Gone," another answered.

"Done/Over/We go."

"No/Not yet/Wait/No/Listen!" moaned an especially clustered blur of werewolf parts. The others fell silent. They shuddered. It was hard to act without direct orders, but the most dominant personality held sway over the others. They waited and listened.

Under the shocked silence of the forest, they heard laughter, soft at first, then building into the sound of lunatic joy. Their multiple ears perked. The puddle of blood and blackness began to steam, evaporating into black smoke. The smoke rose, twining around the ghost pack, as the laughter went on. When it stopped, eyes opened all through the smoke. They were surrounded. Two of the smaller ones merged together quickly, becoming much larger.

"How wonderful," Alucard purred. "How long did it take him to come up with you? Poor little shadows. Lost little pets." The tendrils of mist became long grasping arms, with sharp-ended fingers. They stabbed through the intangible forms of the pack, blasting their bodies apart like ghouls. "It takes time to ruin something as completely as you have been."

"Master/Stranger!/Stronger," their disembodied voices wailed a warning. He noticed they didn't ask for help. The pieces merged together into one beast, and it fell on him, biting and clawing. The hub of Alucard's dozen ripping hands opened into a fanged maw and they clashed.

A hideous wolf amalgam grappled with what looked like a monstrous spider-creature. Alucard's sharp fingers tore out handfuls of the beast. His teeth bit out gaping holes. It fought him as best it could, but its multiple pieces were ripped apart, and soon, there wasn't enough of it left. The last wriggling fragment made a faint yip, and when no answer came, it seemed to realize it was alone, and stopped its struggles.

"Giving up so easily, while there is some shred of existence?" Alucard scoffed. He had returned to his human form, and rested a boot on the remaining ghost-wolf's last eye. It didn't seem to notice. "A monster made more so, bent to service, and yet **not** struggling until the final, miserable end?"

"Quiet..." it said softly. There was a wonder in its voice that made a rare expression twist Alucard's pale face. He crushed the last bit of unlife out of it and turned back to his path.

Seras was a mile behind him with some of Hellsing's troops. They were coming in by helicopter. To them, the woods looked dark and still, but Seras could see currents of power rippling through it. The scent of blood got her attention and she called to the pilot to swoop in low over a hillside for her to jump down.

"We'll meet you at the ruin!" one of them shouted down to her.

"Be careful!" she called back. They headed on their way, and she headed into the trees to follow the smell of carnage. It was hard to pinpoint. The whole woods smelled like blood. It drowned out any fainter perceptions she might've picked up. With no clearer trail to follow, Seras set off toward the strongest scent. That would be where Alucard was. She ran on quietly, keeping out of the open until she saw Anaid sprawled out in the glade. The werewolf lay in splatter of blood, her clothes torn open.

"Anaid!" Seras was almost afraid to touch her, but she knelt down in the blood and mess to feel for a pulse. It was there, but slow and faint. Anaid's eyes opened weakly. They were they only things on her that weren't stained red, but the light had gone out of them. Even her hair was a dark, damp red now. "Can you move? What do you need?"

Anaid inhaled painfully. Her hand crept up to cover her belly. Seras didn't see an injury there, but leaned closer. She didn't know how badly Anaid was hurt, or how much worse it would make things to move her. Anaid's eyes were open, but didn't seem to be focusing. There weren't any bullet holes that she could see. That meant it hadn't been the Iscariot agent that had attacked the werewolf, or Alucard. Then again, there weren't any claw marks to show she had been fighting Selkah either. A quick check showed nothing. Even the Mark had closed. The only sign of damage was the clean cut through the shirt. That

was done by a blade.

"Anaid?" Seras tried again. "I'm here. I'll help you."

A soft hiss came from the werewolf. Seras thought Anaid was trying to say her name and took the other hand.

"Yes, it's me. It's Seras." She moved so her shadow wouldn't block the moonlight, hoping it would help Anaid heal quicker. Anaid's eyes slid closed again. Seras leaned over to touch her face, intending to wipe some of the blood away. Something closed around her ankle and yanked her leg backwards hard enough to send her down on her chin in the blood-soaked leaves. Seras gasped and turned, even as she was jerked at blurring speed into the darkness. A huge, veined hand was clamped around her ankle.

Seras swung the Harkonnen to her shoulder in one furious movement and fired a round into the blackness. It connected with her attacker only a few feet away and the explosion pulled the hand off of her. There was a roar under the sound of the shot.

Seras scrambled to her feet and looked up to see Rawhead-and-Bloody-Bones towering over her. His child-skin cloak had been blasted partially off him. Smoke rose from the impact point on his shoulder. He squinted at her. It was hard to tell his expression without any skin on his face. When he lunged again, it was much faster than seemed possible for his size. Seras was already reloading and the creature took a cannon blast to the chest.

She took off running again, certain that even that couldn't kill it if Alucard and Walter together hadn't been able to stop it before. Sure enough, the sound of something huge lumbering after her was only a moment away. She forced herself to think, even as she tore through the woods. She couldn't lead it back to the other soldiers. They didn't stand a chance against it. Alucard was busy. Anaid wasn't strong enough to Sing it down like she had before. _That just leaves me_, Seras thought.

The woods had gone silent again, so she slowed to a trot. Rawhead was no longer in sight. Seras stopped and looked around. He was gone. That wasn't good. What was a boogeyman doing in the woods anyway? He belonged under beds and staircases, in closets and basements. Then again, maybe anywhere dark was his. Maybe fear of the dark was really a fear of Rawhead-and-Bloody-Bones. Maybe those massive, grabbing hands could reach out of any darkness. Seras scanned the night around her quickly. _Don't scare yourself any worse than you have to..._ she told herself. She shouldered the cannon and went on more carefully. She could either find her way to Alucard and join the fight, or find her way back to Anaid.

Logic said that there wasn't much she could do for Anaid. Especially since she wasn't even sure what had happened or who had done it. She heard gunfire in the distance and that made up her mind. Alucard wouldn't want her help either, but she could protect the other soldiers. She started off, breaking into a jog to leap over a fallen tree.

As soon as her foot hit the ground on the other side, a fist closed around it. She was jerked back to the ground and pulled toward the dark under the tree. Seras screamed and fired again, blasting the log to splinters and revealing the monster Rawhead again. He bit into her leg, and she clubbed him over the head with the Harkonnen barrel. While she reloaded, he grabbed her leg in both hands and began to pull his mouthful back, trying to peel her skin off with his teeth. Seras shrieked in pain and fired again, point blank into Rawhead's face. When the smoke cleared, she was missing a chunk from her calf and Rawhead had been knocked back on his heels and up to his full height.

Whether she had hurt him this time or just finally destroyed his skin-cloak, Rawhead had lost his sense of humor about the whole thing. He threw both arms out and bellowed in rage like a child's nightmare of a killer gorilla. Seras forced her leg under her and got up, swinging the cannon around to fire again. Something bright flashed between the vampire and the boogeyman, unfolding into a piece of paper. Seras blinked once at the symbols that wrote themselves in gold across it, recognizing them even before she recoiled back. _This can't get any worse! It can't! It can't!_

A bayonet zipped through the paper, pinning it to Rawhead's belly. The creature squealed like a demonic boar. It stumbled back from Seras, clawing at its stomach. More papers begin appearing all around them. Seras turned to run and found herself face to face with Paladin Anderson.

He was strangely quiet, just standing there, blade in one hand. His long coat was gone and his priest clothes were tattered. They were torn by claws, the part of Seras' brain that wasn't hyperventilating in panic noticed. Anaid's shirt was cut by a blade. How had he managed to hurt her so badly without leaving a mark??

Anderson didn't speak. His silence was as terrifying as his fervor. His intense eyes flicked over her once, taking in her injured leg and terrified expression. He dismissed her then, and turned back to Rawhead.

_Good!_ squeaked the panicking part. _Let them kill each other!_ Seras ducked around him and ran. No wards sprang up to stop her. Whatever his reasons, Anderson was letting her go. Maybe he was more interested in bigger prey. It didn't matter. The fact that he was here at all meant that this whole mission could go as badly as Anaid's had.

Seras spared another thought for the werewolf. She felt a little badly that she'd doubted Anaid, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something had changed. More gunfire distracted her and she headed toward it. Behind her, there was another bellow from Rawhead. _Frying pan, fire, it didn't really matter_, she thought with an inward sigh.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

It was a short run at vampiric speed to the castle walls. It was getting easier to break into the inhumanly fast sprint, Seras noticed, bounding up over a ruined wall and into the castle. She could hear sounds of combat farther in, and smell the heightened blood and adrenaline of the human Hellsing operatives. She ran on toward that, forced to slow down when the path became a crumbling stone hallway that branched deeper into the building.

Still following the sound and scent of her fellow soldiers, she slowly became aware of movement alongside her. Something she couldn't see was keeping pace with her, close enough that if she swung her elbow out far enough she could probably connect with it. Gritting her teeth, she hoisted the cannon on one shoulder and in another blink had out her firearm, shooting into the empty space.

The space swirled to dodge, fading chameleon-like into Selkah's ragged, grinning form. She kept firing, cursing mentally. She wasn't sure she could beat Selkah. When Anaid had talked about fighting him, she hadn't even considered winning, just surviving the onslaught. And Anaid had _known_ him, known his tricks, and his Songs. Seras wasn't about to waste time fighting the freakish werewolf when she was needed elsewhere.

_Stay out of his reach_, she told herself. _Slash and run. Don't let him slow you down. He doesn't even care about killing you, just tormenting you. _ She hoped the last part was true. Selkah dodged the next two rounds, but caught the third in the throat. His hiss of pain turned into a gurgle and she put another two rounds into his head. He stumbled and went down, but she sprinted on, knowing it wouldn't be long before he was up. Why didn't the silver bullets hurt him like it did Anaid? Was he just older and more powerful, like her and Alucard with the blessed bayonets? Or was Anaid right in that whatever had been done to Selkah had made him unnatural even by werewolf standards?

She turned a corner and ran head on into Selkah. The impact would've sent her sprawling, but his hand locked around her throat and slammed her back into the wall hard enough that she felt the ancient stonework shift. Surprise and pain made her squeak and he chuckled, sending a bolt of rage through her first panic. Her foot flew up with blinding speed, digging into his stomach with force that would've crippled a human.

In her fury, Seras was stronger than Anderson, and Selkah crumpled slightly forward, but his grin stayed on. The holes in his head were closing, but she could still see the jagged edge of his splintered skull in a few places. Her free hand shot out, and her fingers dug into the bullet holes, past the edges of bone, and into the soft warmth of his brain.

Even then, the sound he made was more of wonder than one of pain. His grip on her throat faltered as hers dug in tighter. She jerked out of his hand and spun him, slamming _his_ head into the wall. His eye, framed by her thumb and index finger, refocused on her.

"He fed my blood to the Table," Selkah whispered. "As long as the Table exists, I can't be destroyed. None of his servants can." His horrible chuckle rumbled under the words, and as she tensed to yank his skull completely out, he lashed out with one arm and brutal strength, tearing her hand free and flinging her off her feet.

This time, the wall she hit went down, sending her into another room. Her thud on the floor with the weight of the stones that came in with her had the floor crumbling. She fell for a long weightless moment before spinning like a cat to land flat on her feet as stones and crumbling wood and ages of dust fell around her. The floor she had landed on was earth which hopefully meant she had nowhere else to fall. The cannon's strap had kept it on her shoulder, but she had no idea what had happened to her sidearm. Still shaken, she took a quick stock of her condition.

She wasn't hurt except for the distant ache where she had smacked into the wall. He hadn't hurt her, which meant he was back to his cat and mouse game. Anaid had said he had been careful not to put himself at risk before Bastion had taken over the pack. The vampire lord must've messed him up badly if he would walk right into pain like that.

And he had told her how to kill him, she realized suddenly. Destroy the Table, and Bastion's servants would have nothing to sustain them. They would die like any other freak. If Selkah had been telling the truth. How likely was that? She sighed and pulled the cannon up to firing position. She only had a few rounds left for it, so she would have to be careful.

Once sure she was completely intact and on solid ground, Seras stepped away from the spot and into the rest of the room. It was dark, even for a vampire's sight, but smelled like blood. She looked up at the hole she had fallen down. There was no sign of Selkah. She tried to hope that she had hurt him badly enough to take him down for awhile, but fully expected him to materialize out of the shadows at any moment. The air smelled fresher farther in, so she ventured carefully forward, hoping to find a way out.

It seemed to be a cellar of some kind. There was some stone work and wood fixtures that were in better condition than the ones upstairs. Being underground must've protected them from some of the elements. The smell of blood got stronger, and she slowed again. She opened up her senses the way she had the night she had found Anaid. Selkah's blood had been warm and pumping on her fingers, which meant he had circulation, which meant he had a heartbeat. If he was close she would be able to hear it.

Sure enough, she could hear a steady thump from somewhere in the dark with her. It was slow and calm, as if the owner was not in a blood-stinking hole under a ruin with a vampire battle going on somewhere overhead. She opened out farther, trying to pick up the intent of the attack when it came. Seras tilted her head to listen harder and saw the gleam of eyes in the dark, not golden, but green.

Anderson was there, standing so silent that she overlooked him in her first glance around the room. Even his thoughts were still. In the darkness, she could barely make out his outline. His glasses were gone, and the cross around his neck was missing

"Don't move," he said, even as she gasped. His voice was a growl between his teeth.

"No," she said, backing away. "No, no, no..." Braced to fight Selkah, her nerve wasn't prepared to face the paladin. Her heel caught on something and she fell backwards with a panicked squeak. She had landed on some wooden slat stairs in the dark.

Anderson was charging, she could sense the movement coming at her fast. As she scrambled to get up, to get away, something grabbed her from behind. She was jerked back hard against the stairs, her skull cracking against the edge of a step. Two huge hand were clutched her around her middle, each bigger than her head and without any skin at all. The blood smell rose around her as Rawhead and Bloody Bones forced his flayed head between the stairs and his nightmarish breath panted against her neck.

She screamed again, and a third hand grabbed her collar. It was Anderson. One of his blades stabbed down and she contorted to get out of the way. The blade sank into Rawhead's skull with a meaty 'thunk' and the creature went still. Seras clawed her way free of its hands, even though it meant running straight into Anderson's arms. Anderson kept his grip on her collar, but swung her to the side. Rawhead wasn't dead. In fact, the creature was glaring at them silently, sunken wet eyes on either side of the blade.

"It, it, it's not supposed to be able to come out from under the stairs," Seras gasped.

Anderson didn't answer. She felt a painful tingle from his grip on her and realized that his cross was in his palm. He had tied it there with the frayed cord.

Something splintered in the stairs and then the monster underneath came hurtling out. Seras threw her arms up to block her face as wood fragments and something wet sprayed out over them. Rawhead seized them both. There was nothing as external as fingernails on his raw fingers, but he was so strong that his grip broke the skin. Seras panic cleared enough for her to stab into his eyes with the arm that wasn't being pinched into her side. Rawhead squeezed her harder and his thumb punctured her skin, digging in under her ribs.

Anderson roared something, and there was a flash of gold light that stung Seras' eyes and all her open wounds. Any other sound was drowned out by Rawhead's screaming. His hand was jerked away from Seras. She heard a rib snap as the finger curled to hang on. There was a hurricane of fluttering pages and Seras staggered away from them, clutching her side. Her back hit a wall and she sagged against it.

_Heal,_ she begged herself. _Heal quickly. Get us out of here!_

When she looked up, Anderson attention was back on her. He stared, quivering, but silent. It was as if all the hatred and zeal in him had been reined in tight. She didn't know whose hand was on those reins, but had a sinking feeling that they wouldn't be able to hold him for long. He needed to kill something. Banishing story time boogey men might be part of the job, but the satisfaction of killing her, personally, had to be tempting him. Not taking her eyes off him, she reached slowly for the cannon.

A blast of sensation shot through her, pure elation and bloodlust on such a scale that it had to come from Alucard. Seras gasped, crying out as her serious, frightened eyes glowed red. Her whole body buckled with the weight of bloodthirsty joy that broke over her in a wave. Everything went red, and through that haze she saw Anderson flying at her, blade in each hand.

The Harkonnen cannon was in her grip as if by will alone. She fired, lips pulling back from teeth suddenly pointed. In her heightened state, she saw the round leave the barrel slowly, had plenty of time to note that it would hit Anderson square. His blood would splatter like rain. In that same slow motion, Selkah appeared again, stepping into the path of the round, taking it in his chest.

She saw it puncture, saw his flesh tear into a ragged swirl around the metal as his ribs liquefied. The round detonated, tearing Selkah's body apart. The hot spray of blood went backwards over Anderson. Seras saw Selkah's head and most of his shoulder splat on the floor. There was an arm partially attached by a few shreds to what was left of his lower torso. The other arm and most of his upper body were simply gone.

_To make sure he stays that way,_ she reminded herself. _Destroy the Table._ She sprang over the body, not caring where Anderson was anymore, and up the remains of the stairs.

She burst back into open air. It helped clear her head of the shared sensations from her Master. Hopefully that meant he had found Bastion and was silencing that target even now. She ran past a window out into the courtyard and slid to a halt in shock.

There was a whole battle going on. The Hellsing soldiers were fighting an army of spectral monsters. On either side of the fray, stood the two vampires. Alucard was exultant, a bonfire of red and black, still holding his precious guns, but wreathed in his hellhounds and dozens of burning red eyes. Gaping maws of maniacally grinning teeth snapped opened and shut and howled with demonic glee.

The vampire lord Bastion merely looked regally put-out. He was a handsome creature with elegant features and curling brown hair spilling around his shoulders. He seemed more reserved than the vampires they had fought, and certainly more so than Alucard. He had none of Alucard's frenetic madness, but matched him for intensity. His eyes burned a poisonous balefire green in his vaguely disappointed face.

Alucard's hellhound whipped across the battlefield, over the heads of the soldiers and their fight. The two guns fired, black magic trailing from the bullets. Bastion didn't even try to dodge. Holes were ripped into his formal clothing, but instead of blood, clouds of cutting sand like tiny shards of glass poured out. They cycloned around the hounds, tearing them into mist.

Pulling her eyes from them, Seras looked at the human soldiers. They were fighting as best they could against ghost-like vampires and monsters, but every time they cut one down, it regenerated and came back at them.

_Table,_ she told herself again. _If there was any truth to what that demented shifter said, the Table has to be destroyed._

She felt more than saw Bastion make some sort of gesture. From an opening that had once been a door to the courtyard, another specter joined the fray. Seras recognized it as the mini-skirted vampire that had tried to wake Anaid to protect her from Alucard. Alucard had left her as a pile of sand in the floor, but the Table had brought her back.

Seras adjusted the Harkonnen across her back with the strap across her chest, and jumped from the window to the ground. She was immediately set upon by something that might've been a vampire, hardly more than a ghoul that had been merged with something else until it was more like a spider. With the Table mantra still in her mind, Seras ducked away from it and ran to the door she had seen the specter come out of.

More specters were coming. They hissed and leapt at her with claws and fangs out, but she was able to shove by them. They were more interested or just more drawn to join the battle than to pursue her so they didn't follow. She was going down more stairs, and the farther down she went, the less tangible the specters were. She followed the trail of Bastion's summoned slaves to a room lit by the blue ghosts of old fires.

A final specter stood there. It was a young girl, with a long dress and dark hair nearly to her knees. She was as solid as the battling specters had been, but made no move to follow them up the stairs. Around her neck was a silver disk with the same raised design of the moon that had been branded into Anaid's palm.

"Christiana," Seras said, remembering what Anaid had called her ward. The specter looked at her.

"You are not my guardian," the child-specter scoffed, and turned with an imperious toss of her head. Seras could see a huge slab of rock on the floor behind her. It was as wide as a mattress and nearly four feet high. A circle had been worn into the middle and a complicated blood channel around the edges. It was caked with layer upon layer of dried blood, and the smell of it sent a stab of hunger through Seras.

"What are you doing?" Christiana asked, still haughtily, but with an edge of uncertainty. Seras didn't want to explain. She had two rounds left in her cannon. That would have to be enough. As she hoisted the Harkonnen up again, the ghost became frightened.

"Guardian!" Christiana screamed suddenly. "Help me!" There was a short pause and Seras loaded as quickly as she could. "Anaid!" Christiana wailed as no answer came. Hearing the werewolf's name from the child-ghost made Seras prickle. "You traitor! Come here now!"

"Shut up!" snapped Seras. She almost argued with the dead girl, but just as quickly decided it would be useless. She turned the cannon to the Table and squeezed the trigger.

"She's dead, isn't she." The voice was heard even over the explosion of the round hitting the Table. It must've been telepathy. "He killed her like he killed me."

One end of the Table lifted off the floor in the explosion, tilting it upwards. Seras saw the fault in the stone as clearly as if it had been outlined in white, and fired the last round straight into it. The Table was blasted in two, one half flying to pieces and the other embedding itself into the far wall, bringing the ceiling crumbling down on them.

Seras turned to run back up the stairs before she was caught in the collapse, but Christiana stood in her way.

"You can't leave," the child ordered. "You have to take care of me!"

"You're already dead," Seras said, feeling hypocritical. "You don't need to be taken care of!" She charged into the ghost, hoping to pass through her. The girl felt solid enough though. She clung to Seras, and her eyes burst into vicious green.

"You have to!" the girl hissed, growing fangs. "I'll make you! _He'll_ make you!"

Snarling in a mix of annoyance, fear, and disgust, Seras felt her fingers stiffen. She pulled back, then lunged forward, using her Master's hand-stabbing trick to impale the child's spectral body on her arm. Christiana screamed as her form dissolved around it. The scream faded with her body until there was nothing left. Seras was almost surprised that it had worked, but didn't have time to give it much thought. With four stories of castle crumbling down around her, she tore up the stairs three at a stride.

Dust was forced up the stairwell in a cloud around her by the cave in. She didn't need to breath, so she closed her physical eyes and ran on with her other senses. She could hear the sound of battle getting closer, and the change in temperature as she got closer to the night air. Then, just as she was sure she was almost out, something blocked her perceptions.

Her eyes opened to see Anderson standing there again, a dark silhouette against the backdrop of battle, blocking the doorway out into the courtyard. For the first time ever, Seras didn't even cringe at the sight. With a growl rippling out of her, she dug in her feet and charged him.


End file.
